


Home for Next Year

by Scribe



Category: due South
Genre: Author's Favorite, Big Bang Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/pseuds/Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody said anything about it, but Ray never got mafia cases anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home for Next Year

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: discussions of off-screen domestic abuse, violence, and dubcon.
> 
> I don't even know how to introduce this fic. It took ten months, it's seven times longer than anything I've ever written, it's in large part what got me into this fandom in the first place. It certainly owes a debt to many people: fiercynn for cheerleading and encouraging and betaing and generally being amazing, darlas_mom for invaluable timeline help, hm_f for last-minute Italian, aria for enabling, desiree for putting up with me never, ever getting her a final draft, the many people I pestered with research questions through the whole process, and everyone who helped me brainstorm titles only to have me change my mind at the eleventh hour...twice.
> 
> Check out the incredible fanmix for this work by DesireeArmfeldt, [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/977832)!

Nobody said anything about it, but Ray never got mafia cases anymore. He wasn't exactly sure who was behind it, though he'd put good money on the Lieutenant. It was one thing for those cases not to end up on his desk, or on Kowalski's desk, but it was another thing entirely that when they did end up on somebody's desk that somebody tended to discover a sudden fondness for working remotely. At this point half the station either didn't know him or didn't care; going above and beyond like that had Fear of Welsh written all over it. Besides, Welsh was the kind of guy who'd hang his own men out to dry but wouldn't let anyone else do it, and Ray had been his for a long time. He figured Welsh was maybe feeling a little guilty about tossing one of his detectives to the mob- by way of the FBI, no less- even if he hadn't had much of a say in the matter. 

Ray didn't try to confirm his suspicions. If he didn't ask, then Welsh never had to admit to doing him a favor, which meant Ray didn't have to acknowledge that there was a favor being done, which meant he didn't have to admit that he needed a favor in the first place. If he often happened to be in the neighborhood of the favorite coffee place of whoever had just finished up one of those cases he didn't hear much about, well, that was coincidence. It certainly wasn't a thank you for the bizarre hours they'd obviously just spontaneously decided to keep for a while. 

The whole thing was the kind of complex look-the-other-way arrangement that Fraser would have found somewhere between incomprehensible and immoral, but Fraser was in Canada and Ray was back in Chicago with nothing much besides half a bowling alley's worth of cash and his job and Fraser's ex-we-don't-talk-about-that. The arrangement with Welsh suited him just fine. After all, all those little bits of not admitting added up to one big not admitting that Ray maybe wasn't entirely equipped to handle his job at the moment, on everyone's part, and he sure as hell wasn't going to rock that boat. Instead he played through all of Fraser's thinly veiled disapprovals in his head, figured he'd had the conversation for the both of them, and didn't get around to actually bringing it up. 

Unfortunately, boats mostly get rocked by oceans and wind and things, not by slightly metaphor-impaired passengers who are busy sitting very still in the middle. Sometimes even the most well-intentioned Lieutenant can't tell what's going to be a mob case until it is one.

It started- _everything_ started- on a perfectly run-of-the-mill afternoon. Kowalski had deemed the case a "smash-and-grab looting turned non-fatal shooting" and was happily marveling over his own poetic turn of phrase, probably because he could tell it was getting on Ray's last nerve. He'd even made up a little tune for it, or maybe he was setting it to some of the crappy music he listened to—it wasn't like Ray would recognize it. Either way the damn thing was stuck in his head now.

They were checking out an address somebody had turned up for their favorite suspect: a disused community room in the basement of a public library, of all places. At least Kowalski shut up once they got inside. They did okay at the actual police work part of partnering, both of them clinging to the job way too hard to risk messing it up. Like now, creeping down the dusty library stairs with guns in hand, Kowalski gone all focused and intense like he did at the flick of a switch.

The community room was big, the size of the whole library footprint with no walls or partitions, just a maze of leaning bookshelves and cardboard boxes and filing cabinets. A bank of fluorescent lights were on over the far third of the room. They illuminated a big gray folding table and nine men, five seated, four standing back, obviously muscle, which, okay, not at all the scene Ray had been expecting.

"You see our guy?" murmured Kowalski in his ear, barely a breath of sound. Ray shook his head. There were two guys facing away from them, though, and they only had a mug shot to go on, so the back of a head didn't help much. He was about to signal _you-go-left-I-go-right_ when one of the two turned to speak to his neighbor and Ray went cold all over, cold like jumping into icy water, cold like he couldn't breathe, cold like frozen. 

He was in the sitting room at two in the morning with a folder full of the world's most dangerous flashcards. He wasn't thinking about his family, or Fraser up in Canada, wasn't thinking about guns or Feds or Rankin or any of it, just flipping the pages over and back, over and back. There was this man's face. There were his own scrawled notes because writing something down helped you remember it. His name was Max, and Ray could picture his girlfriend, knew the two guys he liked to work with, the details of the deals no one had managed to pin on him, but he _couldn't remember his last name_.

Kowalski elbowed him. He had a look on his face like if they were in any other situation he would be loudly wondering what the hell was going on. Ray grabbed blindly, got a fistful of t-shirt and one of the holster straps, and hauled him back, away, not letting go until they were up the stairs and into the empty lower lobby. 

"The guy in the blue shirt," he said, leaning hard against one of the brick walls. "From Vegas. No idea what he's doing here."

"Shit. He see you?"

"I don't think so. I never met him, I just remember him from the files. Max something. Had a hand in every nasty thing you can think of." He wracked his brain, could remember practicing it in Langoustini's voice, quiet and even and a little deeper than his own, but he still couldn't come up with the name. The panic was starting to make him nauseous.

"Okay," said Kowalski. "I don't know what the hell we stumbled on here, but it is not what we were looking for. You wanna go call for backup?"

"Yeah, good idea," he said, grateful. Sometimes he forgot that Kowalski actually understood about discretion being the better part of keeping your internal organs intact. He carried a gun and sometimes he wore a vest- though probably not today, given that they'd thought they were after a looter- and his idea of strategy wasn't reasoning calmly with the mafia. Granted, he couldn't really reason calmly with anyone, but at least he mostly didn't try. 

He was turning to go back downstairs, though, and Ray grabbed him again. He got a look like maybe Kowalski was getting a little sick of this.

"Vecchio?"

"You can't go back there, I can't remember his last name!"

"It's fine, we'll look it up when we get back to the station. I'm just gonna listen. I'll be real careful, I promise."

And then Kowalski was gone and Ray was really damn glad for the wall taking his weight because, right. No more cover to protect. Not knowing the name wasn't going to get him killed, and it certainly wasn't going to get Kowalski killed. It was done.

He went out to the Riv to make the backup call and then headed back to the closed-off lower lobby, ducked into the men's room and washed his hands, ran one of them wet over the top of his head, not that it really did anything. He was a mess. He was a cop, he should be able to deal with adrenaline by now, but his shirt was soaked with sweat and he couldn't get his breathing all the way under control.

The bathroom door was swinging shut behind him when he heard the gunshot.

He practically plowed over Kowalski on the stairs, both of them going opposite directions at a full-tilt run.

"Wasn't me, I'm fine," Kowalski gritted out, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back up the stairs again. This was starting to feel like a Fraser chase. They ducked into the bathroom just as the men came into earshot, footsteps and polite chatter that was kind of creepy considering they were probably leaving a body behind. 

"You wanna do anything?" Ray asked, quiet, tilting his head toward the door. Kowalski snorted.

"Do what, get our brains blown out? No thanks. I saw what they did back there, these aren't ask questions first kinda guys."

I could've told you that, Ray thought. He washed his hands again, just for something to do, trying to look less shaky than he felt. Kowalski paced to the door and back, then stopped and blew out a breath.

"So we've got a nice murder scene downstairs," he said finally. "And now we've got no suspect."

 

It took years to get out of there. It took _lifetimes_. They wanted every detail of what Kowalski'd seen and heard, and Kowalski was trying to tough out wanting to puke every time he looked at the body- which, honestly, how was this guy a cop?- and also being really unsubtle about keeping a worried eye on Ray, and Ray was trying to look like he was holding up the wall instead of the other way around and feeling like there was a giant spotlight on him saying panic attack, lost his shit, flipped out in front of God and everyone and the mafia, did it on the job.

When they finally got out to the parking lot Ray tossed his keys over and slid into the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. He knew better than to try driving like this; he'd probably run into a building or something and he didn't think there was another 1971 Riviera left on the continent at this point. Kowalski, thankfully, didn't say anything, just caught the keys out of midair and got in.

He kept quiet while he was driving, too, quiet while he parked and returned the keys and they went in, and then the only thing he said was,

"Sir, can I talk to you for a minute?" and closed Welsh's office door behind him before he even got a reply. Ray sat down at his desk and waited for the axe to fall. 

He thought he was going to do it, too, wait there until Welsh called him in and then go and listen and probably turn in his shield, but when the door started opening he was up and making a beeline for the bathroom before his body even consulted his brain. His brain probably could have told his body that there wasn't anywhere to go from there, and there really wasn't anywhere to go once Kowalski followed him in and let the door shut behind them. God, this day was going in circles.

"Look, it's okay," said Kowalski. He looked kind of jittery, which wasn't anything new, but was getting under Ray's skin more than normal. "I mean, it's not okay, it sucks, but I mean…I get it."

Ray stared. He didn't want anything to do with this conversation. It wasn't Kowalski's fault, it was his job to tell Welsh what went down, but Ray didn't have to like him for it, and he sure as hell didn't have to listen to his sympathy. 

When he didn't respond Kowalski's voice went up a notch, like it did when he was pissed off and having trouble staying coherent.

"Undercover, it sucks, it messes with you, I've been there. The first couple times after you don't have your head on straight. It takes a while. I'm saying, y'know, it's fine. I understand."

"You understand? What the hell do you understand?" He wasn't being fair, Ray knew that, he knew Kowalski'd had other gigs, but he didn't care. "You don't look like me, you don't talk like me, you don't act like me. Did you even change one thing about your life?"

"I changed plenty-"

"Yeah? Like what." He was too loud, almost shouting, but he didn't care about that either. "The entire station knew who you were. Your parents came to visit, for god's sake!"

"I didn't say it was the same, I said I been there!"

"Right, like you get one syllable of one word wrong and you get a bullet in the back of your brain kind of been there? The only thing you did was answer the phone with a different name. You don't know anything about undercover."

Kowalski took a step back, eyes hard, and pulled his voice down to a hiss. "Yeah, well, I loved Fraser and I walked out on him, so I'd say I pretty much aced being you."

And Ray just shouldered past him and walked, out of the bathroom and kept going, out, out of the station, because it wasn't like he could screw up his job any more by leaving early, and he'd made a goddamn New Year's resolution not to hit anyone who wasn't resisting arrest.

 

The problem with going home early was that it left him with even more hours to fill than usual. He took a shower to get the panic sweat off, did some laundry, started making broth from a bag of chicken bones he'd been saving in the freezer. He could go over to the house for dinner. His family treated him like nothing had changed, and in the midst of all that noise and warmth he mostly felt like it hadn't, like _he_ hadn't. A man his age should be able to live with himself in places other than his mother's dining room, though, so he stayed in, and was there when the door buzzer sounded a little before nine.

People didn't really visit him unannounced; he was expecting a neighbor with misplaced keys when he hit the button and said,

"Yeah?"

"It's Ray. Kowalski," came the crackly reply. "Can I come up?"

Ray buzzed him in, but only because it was too late to pretend he wasn't home. The anger from earlier was long gone. He was just tired- he hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in almost a year and a half- and he didn't want to deal with whatever this was.

After a minute there was a knock, and Ray checked the peephole before opening the door, a post-Bookman habit that was probably going to last the rest of his life. It was just Kowalski. He'd changed since work, though only into a different t-shirt, and he looked kind of on edge.

"I'm apologizing, okay?" he said. "You gonna let me in?"

"Right, yeah." He stepped back to let Kowalski through, then shut the door and set the chain lock again. When he turned Kowalski was prowling around his apartment a little, more like he couldn't keep still than like he actually cared what he was looking at. Ray thought he'd been drinking. Not drunk, definitely not drunk, but drinking. He had an old talent for judging that kind of thing.

"You want anything?" he asked, then wished he hadn't. There wasn't much besides tap water to offer, and he wanted to get this over with.

"No thanks." Kowalski circled back and came to a stop in front of him. "Look, I wanted to say I'm sorry. What I said before, you know, about Fraser, it was out of line."

"You think?" It came out sounding more rueful than angry, but Kowalski's hackles went up just the same, you could see it all over him. Ray caught himself thinking that the guy probably couldn't bluff worth a damn, and gave himself a mental shake to get Vegas out of his head. Right. Partners. Smoothing things over.

"All right," he said. "I'm sorry for what I said, too, I was just upset. I know you do good undercover work."

"Okay." Kowalski nodded, watching him intently. "Apology accepted. So we're good?"

"Yeah, we're good."

"Good." 

There was a pause. 

"Is there any reason this couldn't have waiting until the morning?" Ray asked. Kowalski gave this weird little laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, there is. I wanted to show you something. To make up for it, you know? Just, uh, don't hit me."

Ray gave him an incredulous look. He had no idea what was coming, and something told him he didn't want to find out. 

"Don't hit me," Kowalski said again, all in a rush, and kissed him.

Okay.

Ray kind of cooperated. He wasn't proud of the fact, in retrospect, but his mind was spinning fast enough that he let it go on longer than he should have, let Kowalski back him up a couple steps so he was pressed against the wall of his own front hallway. Kowalski was a good kisser. He was startlingly good, in fact, and yet not at all what Ray would have predicted if he had for some reason been hypothesizing about the man's technique. Kowalski kissed like he was desperate for it, like he'd been waiting forever, passionate and intense and a little wild. He was hot where he was pressed up against Ray's front, and his hands were hot on Ray's face, and he tasted sweet even though Ray was pretty sure about the drinking thing, and nothing about this added up at all.

Ray shoved him back with two hands on his chest and wiped his mouth.

"What the hell?" he managed. Kowalski, breathing a little hard, made an abortive gesture that Ray couldn't interpret. He was coiled tense, about two seconds from fight or flight.

"That's how Fraser kisses," he said.

Everything clicked together, nice and neat, like that moment when the crucial piece of evidence turned up and all the pieces fell into place and his brain presented him with the whole case, boom bang bing, without him even thinking about it. _I wanted to show you something_ , Kowalski'd said. The way the kiss spoke to a history they didn't have. The way he tasted- apple juice, supplied the detective part of Ray's brain, on cue- which meant he'd chased whatever he was drinking with it on purpose because Fraser wouldn't taste like alcohol, and that was maybe the most fucked up thing Ray had ever heard.

"Get out," he said. 

"I just thought you might want to know," said Kowalski. He had his hands in the air like Ray had a gun on him, and he was glaring.

"Get _out_."

"All right, I'm going." He undid the chain lock but stopped at the door and turned, something dark in his expression that made Ray wonder for the first time about his motive for doing this. There was obviously a parting shot coming. He didn't expect it to be,

"Let me know if you change your mind, I'll show you how he fucks."

 

Going into work the next morning was maybe the most terrifying thing he'd done since getting back to Chicago. His heart was pounding; he kept his head down, going straight for the coffee. Between worrying that he was about to lose his job and wondering what the hell had happened with Kowalski he'd only managed a couple hours of sleep. Kowalski, speak of the devil, was already in even though it was early, sitting quietly at his desk with a stack of paperwork and an enormous travel mug. He didn't look up, and Ray didn't try to catch his eye.

Welsh caught him before he could get back to his desk, coming out to stand in the doorway of his office.

"Vecchio, Kowalski," he called, "you're off the looting thing." Ray clenched his jaw and kept his eyes on his coffee. He would have at least expected this to happen behind a closed door, not out here with every single person in the station watching.

"Someone else will take care of it," Welsh was saying. "You two have a new case, they pulled a body out of the lake this morning. I'd like to at least know who it was by the end of the day."

"You got it," said Kowalski, heading for the door. Ray was stuck in the middle of the room, staring.

"Did you need something, Detective?"

"No sir," he managed, and scrambled to catch up before Welsh changed his mind.

 

Ray spent the day in a haze of confused relief, which was good because the case was kind of a wash. The victim was a Caucasian male, maybe mid-twenties, looked like he'd been beaten up a little before ending up in the lake but nothing that should have killed him. The contents of his pockets included some change, a barely legible receipt, a snapped wristband like you'd get at a concert, and nothing in the way of ID.

"The tattoo's new," said Kowalski, waving his foot toward the man's arm. "A day old, maybe two." It was one of the less gruesome corpses Ray had seen but Kowalski was still keeping his eyes mainly to the side, doing his own examination in a series of glances. It didn't seem to stop him noticing things, at least. Ray squatted down and peered at the arm where Kowalski had indicated; the tattoo was a string of Asian characters done in blue and black. 

"You have any idea what it means?" he asked. Kowalski snorted.

"Do I look like-" he started, and then cut himself off, not that it mattered. Ray knew the end of the sentence. He straightened up and the two of them stood there awkwardly for a minute, not looking at each other, until the coroner came over.

The tattoo was a lead, but it didn't get them anywhere that day. Neither did the receipt, the wristband, and the victim's description. Kowalski was avoiding him as much as you could possibly avoid the guy you were working a case with. He clocked out at five on the dot but Ray stuck around, calling tattoo parlors and shuffling papers until Welsh left at six thirty without saying a single word to him about what had happened the day before. When the doors swung shut he put his head down on his desk and just breathed for a minute. He didn't know why or how, but for some reason it was all okay, they were all going to go on not admitting anything, he was going to stay.

He called Fraser while he was making dinner that night. Fraser didn't have a phone, but the RCMP office did, and as long as he paid for the charges no one minded if he used it. Ray privately doubted that anyone was tracking the phone records anyway, but that was Fraser for you. Calling him still felt different, special; they hadn’t spoken at all while Ray was in Florida trying to live someone else’s life. It turned out that a clean break wasn’t really what he’d needed at all, and in trying he’d missed whatever had happened to send Kowalski home just a few months after he’d moved to Canada. Ray still felt bad about that. Fraser was composed and vague about it now, and Kowalski sure as hell wasn’t talking, but Ray couldn’t shake the feeling that something big had gone down, that he hadn’t been there just when Fraser needed a friend the most. He hadn’t even given Fraser the Florida phone number.

When he'd gotten back to Chicago determined to pull the threads of his old life together they'd tried to set up regular times to talk, but it turned out that planning a phone call was more or less just a way to ensure that somebody was going to get shot or taken hostage or lost in an ice field or something, whatever it was Fraser was saving people from up there. After a couple of months they'd just started calling when they could, trying to stay mindful of work schedules (Ray's) and phone access (Fraser's) and not caring too much when they didn't get through. They managed to connect maybe once every week or two, which worked well enough.

He was lucky tonight; the phone rang three times and was picked up.

"Constable Katherine Wilkinson speaking, how can I help you?"

"Hey, Wilkinson, it's Ray. How're you?" Between the stories he'd heard and the number of messages she fielded for him Ray felt like he practically knew Fraser's partner. Hopefully she felt the same way and wasn't just humoring him for politeness's sake.

"I'm just fine. Yourself?"

"Oh, you know, same old. Is Fraser there? No emergency."

"Yeah, you've got him, for once. Hold on." There was nothing but the quiet hum of long distance for a minute, and then Fraser's ever-familiar voice.

"Ray! I'm glad you caught me, I was just on my way out the door."

"Don't let me hold you up if you're going somewhere," he said, just formality.

"No, no, I was just headed home for the day. I'd much rather talk to you. How have you been?"

"I've been-" fine, he thought, great, okay, well, and god, he missed Fraser _so much_ sometimes. "I've been kind of rough, to tell the truth."

"Has something happened?" Fraser asked, audibly concerned.

"No, don't worry, I'm fine. We're both fine," he added, because Fraser would need to know that but wouldn't ask. He mostly dealt with the mystery of Fraser and Kowalski's failed relationship by ignoring it, but that didn't mean he had to be petty, and he didn't want to make Fraser worry. The whole thing was a little harder to ignore than usual, anyway, what with the memory of Kowalski's tongue down his throat not ten steps from where he was standing at the stove. 

He told Fraser the story, from the looter to the library to the body in the river, though he left out Kowalski's late-night visit.

"Well, I'm glad you're not hurt," said Fraser.

"Yeah, yeah, me too, I know it could've been a lot worse. I just can't figure out why I still have my badge. You'd think Welsh would have made me go to some kind of counseling at the very least. But no, not a word about the whole thing."

"Do you mean you haven't been talking to anyone about your experiences in Las Vegas?" 

"Do I look like I want to lose my badge?"

"I believe that the police department's counseling is in fact intended to help you keep your badge, and to use it effectively."

"Yeah, sure, that's what it says in the pamphlet. You can't just go around believing things you read in pamphlets."

"I'll keep that in mind, Ray," said Fraser, with that tone of voice that meant he thought Ray was full of shit. Ray grinned to himself; it was a lot less infuriating over the phone.

"Still," continued Fraser, "if I'm not mistaken a least some minimal consultation with a police psychologist would have been mandated after your assignment."

"Yeah, but get this- while I was in Florida I was technically retired, and by the time I got back to Chicago it was long enough ago that the regs didn't apply. Beautiful, right?"

"The 'regs', as you put it, are there for a reason," said Fraser. Ray could hear the frown in his voice. "Retired or not, you had just returned from an extended period undercover."

Ray sighed. They didn't talk much about their respective Kowalski adventures, but he'd kind of hoped Fraser had figured this one out.

"No, I hadn't," he said. "I was still undercover in Florida, just as someone else."

"Ah," said Fraser, quietly. There was a pause. "Ray, I didn't-"

"My point is that Welsh should have sent me off to therapy yesterday," he said quickly. He'd already heard Fraser's sorry-for-running-out-on-you-to-be-with-the-love-of-my-life apology; he didn't really want Version 2.0. "I know he knows what happened, I saw Kowalski tell him, plus we're off the case now."

"Perhaps Lieutenant Welsh was only trying to avoid any complications if the man you recognized took you for Langoustini, or for his impersonator," said Fraser, accepting the change of topic.

"No, he knows I- oh my god, he doesn't. Kowalski didn't tell him." Click, went all the pieces. It added up. 

"I thought you saw-"

"Saw, yeah, but I didn't hear what he said," Ray said, interrupting again in his haste to talk it through. "He must've just told Welsh that I knew the guy from Vegas, nothing else. Why would he do that? I don't get it."

"He is a decent man, Ray." Fraser could pack more layers of meaning into a word like "decent" than it was ever meant to convey. Whatever it all distilled to was too close to the things they didn't talk about, though, so Ray didn't ask.

"Sure, but he's also the one who could get shot if I freeze up," he said instead. "It doesn't make sense."

"I know it was upsetting, but perhaps he doesn't see the incident quite the way you do? Empirically speaking, all you did was recognize a unexpected risk and remove yourselves from the situation until it could be addressed."

"Sounds nice when you put it that way, but I don't think so. He was right next to me, and I was definitely losing it. Empirically, even."

"Well, why don't you ask him? I'm sure he'd be happy to explain, if you are correct and he didn't mention the incident to Lieutenant Welsh."

"Yeah, maybe I'll do that," said Ray. He wasn't about to admit that he and Kowalski weren't exactly talking ever since Kowalski had offered to show him what Fraser was like in bed. 

"How is Ray Kowalski?" asked Fraser, carefully. That meant the two of them probably still weren't talking; Kowalski's choice, Ray was almost certain.

"He's, uh, good, I guess. I don't really see him outside of work." Except when he shows up at my door with some liquid courage and a proposition, Ray didn't say. So no, Kowalski probably wasn't good. He was probably twelve kinds of mess, and hiding it a lot worse than Fraser-- not that that was surprising.

"Ah," said Fraser. "Well, that's good." There was another pause. Ray stirred his vegetables.

"Look, I didn't meant to call you up and just be all me, me, me," he said. "How are things in the great white north?"

There had been a time when Ray would given a lot to never hear another Canada story, but these days they were his favorite part of talking to Fraser. Fraser told a good story, not necessarily because there was any content to them, but because he was so personally invested in every single one that you almost couldn't help caring. He'd had a week of basically nothing, from the sound of it, but he strung it out to twenty minutes: Dief relentlessly wooing the stone-hearted Constable Wilkinson, a local engagement, arresting a man for some incomprehensible hunting violation, not arresting anybody for a small-time vandalism case that had Ray laughing and Fraser apparently at his wits' end.

Ray put everything on simmer and rested his elbows on the counter, making occasional interested noises and letting his mind drift. Listening to Fraser had this safety to it, like they were having breakfast in some crappy diner with Armando Langoustini still alive and Victoria in prison and the Kowalskis busy getting divorced, unseen in some other part of the city. His stories didn't involve pieces of Las Vegas showing up where they shouldn't, or anyone getting shot (except maybe the wrong caribou), and Fraser always saved the day. For some reason Ray could just close his eyes while Fraser was talking and all of the things that he was always, always trying not to think about would stop threatening for a minute and let him listen.

He was kind of drifting a little- he was so _tired_ \- listening more to Fraser's voice than his words, so it took him a minute to realize that something was strange. Fraser was describing his new cabin, the one Ray hadn't seen, but he wasn't doing it in a very Fraser-ish fashion. Ray would have expected a treatise on the type of wood it was made of, or maybe the ancient art of log joining, but instead Fraser was talking about it being spacious and well-heated and a convenient drive into town. 

"That sounds great, Benny," he said.

"Do you think so?" And, oh, right, there was his Fraser-to-human translator coming online. The realtor spiel was for him. Ray found himself smiling, pushing himself up to deal with his food.

"I do think so. Maybe I could come see it sometime, what do you think?"

"I'd like that very much."

"Although I do seem to risk my life every time I step over the border. No dog sled chases this time, okay? Actually, no chases of any kind. And read your flight manuals."

"Well, I doubt those circumstances will repeat themselves."

"They'd better not. I can't get out of the city for months, though, maybe spring at the earliest. I have zero leave of any kind saved up, from being retired and all."

"I understand, Ray. I'll be here."

"I'll hold you to that." There was a lump in his throat, saying that, and he couldn't tell if it was happy or sad. It was true, Fraser would be there, would wait for however long it took Ray to come up and never hold it against him. But Fraser would be _there_.

They said their goodbyes, Fraser off to his excitingly modern cabin for the night and Ray sitting down to the dinner he'd made. While he ate he thought about Joseph Colangelo, who had died because Ray hadn't specifically said that he shouldn't, and when he couldn't stand thinking about that anymore he thought about how Fraser and Kowalski at least had the guts to give it a try. 

 

The next day was Wednesday. They finally got an ID on the body, not from any work they'd done, but from Frannie matching the face on a missing persons report. Mort proclaimed the cause of death to be drowning. Ray rolled his eyes a little at that; no way it took twenty-four hours to decide that a guy they'd pulled out of Lake Michigan had, wow, drowned. He expected Kowalski to have a rant on the subject, at least once they'd gotten out of the morgue, but Kowalski was still being all quiet and tense. 

Ray owed him, though, whatever his reasons actually were for keeping Welsh in the dark. In the car on the way to interview the victim's parents he took a deep breath and broke the silence.

"It's kind of creepy how bodies just conveniently turn up in the lake whenever Welsh needs them, don't you think?"

Kowalski let out a sound that was way too much relief to even qualify as a laugh.

"Maybe he stocks it. You know, like they put extra fish in the rivers so people can go catch them?" Kowalski offered. He started drumming out a rhythm on the dashboard where Fraser's hat used to sit, but Ray cut him some slack on it for once. It occurred to him that while he'd been worrying about Vegas and keeping his job, Kowalski had probably been worried that Ray was going to deck him, or maybe tell the whole station what he'd done.

The tension between them eased a little after that. They were still stepping carefully around each other, though, splitting up whatever work they could, not really talking. Now that Ray wasn't worrying about the other stuff he could see the shape of Monday night between them, Kowalski's offer hanging in the air. He stayed late again, following up a lead. At five o'clock Kowalski looked at his watch, looked at Ray, and disappeared.

The lead crumbled into nothing by midday Thursday, and nothing was what they kept turning up all day. At five Ray stayed and Kowalski bolted. The latter was definitely stranger than the former; both of them spent four out of five evenings at the precinct on a regular week. The way Ray figured it, there were two ways you went out as a cop (three, if you counted the one he'd given up. Four, if you counted death). Either you got worn down, started cutting corners, going home early, running just a little slower, or you hardened up, worked late, hit a little too hard, haunted the station. Everybody started leaning one way or another around the time they hit forty, even if it was just a little lean at first.

Ray wasn't quite forty yet, but then he hadn't exactly had your run-of-the-mill tenure with the police. Before he met Fraser he'd been a sure candidate for option number one. He didn't know what Kowalski had been before, but now they were both leaning hard in the other direction, destined to work themselves bitter avoiding strongly-suggested retirement until they physically couldn't handle the job anymore. Ray had been thinking lately that he might take a desk job at that point, might actually like it, organizing and overseeing and keeping all the cogs moving in harmony. Something he wouldn't have thought of before Vegas. Kowalski wouldn't, though, he could barely sit still behind a desk for a minute, and his idea of organization was throwing things he didn't want to deal with in the trash. Ray wondered what he was planning to do. He wondered what Kowalski was doing with all his evenings this week, actually. Neither of them had much to go home to.

On Friday they closed the case, still not through any work of their own; someone found a suicide note. Ray hated suicides. There wasn't anything you could do for all the people you'd spent the week interviewing, no killer to point to and say "we got him," no motive or course of events you could explain. 

Kowalski wasn't any good with it either. They both drank too much coffee and avoided people's eyes all day, including each other's. Ray would have given an arm to have Fraser there, comforting grieving loved ones with vaguely relevant stories about polar bears and the meaning of life or something, talking it out with Ray from the passenger seat of the Riv. Instead he went back to the station and stared at the three new cases on his desk without accomplishing anything.

On Friday night he went over to Kowalski's apartment and said,

"Okay, so show me." 

Kowalski didn't ask if he was sure- which was good, because he wasn't- just stared at him for a long moment.

"Okay," he said eventually. "Okay. Just give me a minute to clean up first, help yourself to whatever." He disappeared down the hall and closed a door somewhere out of sight, leaving Ray alone and off-balance in the cluttered living room. 

He checked the refrigerator, but the only choices were beer, beer, and beer, so he left it alone. He'd stopped drinking in Florida, just quietly, when he realized that he wasn't ever going to sleep easy. It would have been simple to pour a glass of something to help him nod off at night. He could see where that road led, though, and he had no intention of setting foot on it, so he'd just stopped. There were a lot of rules like that in his life these days. They made things easier, somehow.

He got himself a glass of tap water instead, leaning against the counter and measuring his failing nerve. He was just on the edge of calling the whole thing off when he heard the shower start and froze, glass to his lips, putting two and two together and getting _oh my god, Fraser bottoms_.

It wasn't like it actually meant anything- Fraser and Kowalski could have traded off nightly for all he knew, and it didn't particularly matter to Ray- but it was _true_ , it was a real, certain fact, an actual truth about Fraser that he'd never expected to know. His heart was pounding, he realized, draining the water and setting the glass aside. Kowalski could take as long as he wanted; Ray wasn't going anywhere. 

Kowalski reappeared a couple minutes later in jeans and nothing else, hair still a little wet and lying flat on his forehead. It made him look younger than he was. Ray had forgotten about the tattoo.

"Lesson one," he said. "Fraser's always in favor of a bedroom if there's one available. He's kinda traditional that way." He jerked his head, but waited for Ray to push off the counter before he disappeared back into the hallway again. Ray took a deep breath, trying not to think too hard about what he was doing, and followed.

He barely got a glimpse of the bedroom- messy again, Kowalski had clearly only been talking about cleaning himself up, not his apartment- before he had Kowalski pressing up all along his front.

"I mention he likes kissing?"

"Yeah," said Ray, even though he hadn't, exactly, and it was zero to sixty in a second, just like before. More than before, really, because Ray was participating this time, kissing back just as franticly, grabbing for Kowalski's bare shoulders. Was this how Fraser always kissed, or just as a prelude to sex? He thought about asking but didn't want to push his luck. Maybe afterward, if this didn't blow up in their faces.

Kowalski tore his mouth away for long enough to say, "He likes hands in his hair," so Ray did that. Kowalski's hair was damp and soft; right, he'd washed the gel out of it. It was almost the right length to be Fraser's, too. It was like the apple juice all over again, except this time Ray didn't bother worrying about how completely fucked up it was, just made a noise he couldn't even identify and threaded his fingers through.

"Yeah," muttered Kowalski, right into his mouth, and tugged him closer, wrapping an arm tight around Ray's shoulders. He was trying to get Ray's shirt untucked with the other hand but he kept losing focus, like kissing him was more important than anything. Ray kind of lost track of it too, and when Kowalski finally got a hand on the small of his back the heat of it was shocking, the soft press of his fingertips enough to make Ray pull away and gasp.

Kowalski was panting a little, hair mussed, lips slick and swollen. He looked, god, debauched, just from kissing Ray, and for a second Ray wanted it to be Fraser he'd done that to so badly it hurt. 

Kowalski either didn't see it in his face or didn't care. He leaned back in and Ray met him halfway; kissing was easier, kissing was gorgeous, he'd never been this turned on by kissing in his entire life and he still didn't want to do anything else if it meant he had to stop. Kowalski was rubbing distracted patterns on his back, trying to pull him closer than he could actually go.

The next time he had more than a second to breathe he figured he was getting more instructions, but instead Kowalski veered off and kissed a precise line back along his jaw until he could get his mouth on the shell of Ray's ear, suck lightly on the lobe. There was nothing to muffle the noise Ray made this time. He'd imagined this, wondered about Fraser and his oral fixation. He'd been _right_.

"Okay, don't ask me why," said Kowalski in his ear, "but he really loves being touched through his pants. Not the uniform, uniform's pretty much sacred, but anything else." 

Kowalski was hard under the jeans- because of Fraser, or because of Ray, or just because this was happening, Ray had no idea. 

"Little harder," he said, so Ray pressed in with the heel of his hand, harder than he would have liked, and got, "Yeah, fuck, like that."

Kowalski shuddered a breath and blinked his eyes up to Ray's. "Lesson two," he said. "Fraser always wants to do all the undressing." His voice was steady but his hips were shifting a little under Ray's hand, and he slipped on Ray's shirt buttons a couple of times. 

"That include undressing himself?"

"Yeah, usually. Not a big loss, though, otherwise it takes half an hour to get the uniform off."

"I know," said Ray, "I wore it once."

"Me too." Kowalski flashed a grin at him, this bizarre moment of sharp-edged camaraderie, and then he was done with the buttons and Ray had to stop groping him for a minute to get the shirt off over his wrists. When he was done Kowalski grabbed his hand back and ground into it once, hard, holding on, and then released him.

"Come on, come on," he said, reaching for Ray's belt, and okay, they were going for it, Kowalski stripping both of them down the rest of the way and tugging Ray toward the bed. Kowalski ended up on his back; it was easy enough for Ray to figure out where he was meant to go, even without any direction. When he settled down on top, fuck, skin to skin, Kowalski grabbed him by the hips and let out this sound that had too much pitch in it to be called a breath but wasn't anything else, really.

"Lesson three," he said. "Welcome to Fraser's second-" he stopped, mouth crooking up at what was clearly a memory- "no, third favorite part of sex. Sometimes it's all he wants, in the morning especially." 

Ray kissed him again, because Fraser liked kissing, and because he wasn't sure he could handle the next thing to come out of Kowalski's mouth just then. This time he really was as desperate as the kiss suggested. He had his weight on his elbows but if he shifted he could still get one hand in Kowalski's soft hair, closing his eyes and thrusting down against him. Kowalski was trying to keep their rhythm slow and Ray almost couldn't let him, even though it was presumably what Fraser wanted, because apparently what Fraser wanted was sometimes just to grind against something until he came. Ray hadn't known that, hadn't ever thought of it, and somehow that was even hotter than when he'd guessed right. 

"Okay, okay," said Kowalski. He shoved at Ray's shoulder to get some room and leaned over to yank on the nightstand drawer. Once Ray figured out what he was doing he got out of the way, sitting back on his knees and watching Kowalski toss lube and a condom onto the sheets. 

"You done this before?" he asked, rolling back over. It struck Ray as funny that Kowalski could tell he was in love with Fraser but apparently couldn't guess this other thing, couldn't see it on him.

"Yeah," he said. Yeah, he'd done it. His eighth day in Vegas he'd still just felt like Ray acting his ass off- feeling like Langoustini would come later- but he'd already learned a hell of a lot about bluffing. When they'd sent the guy in to him he'd just said he wanted to watch him get ready, tried to make it sound sexy and commanding, and wandered around the bed for a good view so he'd know what to do the next time.

There'd been a lot of next times between then and now.

Kowalski was taking him at his word, apparently; he'd stretched out on his back and pulled his knees up, feet planted far apart, which was an invitation if Ray had ever seen one.

"You gotta be careful, he's ticklish right here," said Kowalski, running a hand over the place where his thigh met his groin. "And take your time with this part, Fraser loves it. I mean seriously _loves_ it, can't get enough."

That was a direction Ray could follow. He stuck with one finger for a long time, way longer than he needed to, pulled all the way out and teased a bit before giving Kowalski two. He found himself wondering if it was true, though, if this was a universal Fraser thing or if Kowalski just thought it was because obviously his hands were one of his best features, and maybe it was just Kowalski's fingers Fraser liked rather than fingers in general. 

It didn't matter, really. Kowalski wouldn't know the answer even if Ray asked, which he wasn't going to do. He squeezed out a little more lube and switched to three fingers instead. Kowalski was panting for breath, hands fisted on the sheets, but still talking. 

"Good, fuck, yeah, that's it, you got it-" it was more mumbling than talking, maybe, but Ray stayed with him, kept on until he got, "Okay, okay, enough, god, you got the condom?"

He did. He'd neglected to put it on before he had lube all over his hands, which caused a bit of a delay- Kowalski was probably laughing at him, though he didn't check- but eventually he was ready. He braced himself and looked up, waiting for a prompt.

"All the way in and hold it," said Kowalski. He looked like he was ready to argue if Ray hesitated, so he didn't, just went for it in one long thrust that tore a groan out of him and made Kowalski arch and gasp for breath. 

Then he held still. Kowalski was frozen under him; it felt like an eternity before he finally relaxed, almost inch by inch.

"Okay," he said eventually. His voice was a little shaky. "The Fraser special. Slow, hard, and draw it out."

Drawing it out was asking a lot- Ray was already fighting for control- but he tried, going slow and deep and trying to match Kowalski's rhythm. Kowalski just didn't have enough bulk to be any kind of good match for Fraser, even when Ray's eyes were closed, but it didn't matter at all. He was used to superimposing Fraser over other people's bodies. In Vegas maintaining the cover was the top priority, higher than anything, and when you needed your body to do something you just thought about whatever you had to to get it done. He didn't even feel guilty about it. It was a survival skill.

This was different, though. Holding a fantasy in his mind's eye to get off was one thing, but this was real, this was what Fraser really actually wanted, Fraser who was out there in Canada right now and not just a product of Ray's imagination, this was what Ray could give him. Somehow Kowalski's monologue- he was still going, giving instructions on how Fraser didn't like to be jerked off until the very end- wasn't jarring at all. It just made it all truer, somehow helped turn his too-thin body into Fraser's, Fraser's hips rolling against Ray’s, Fraser's cock leaking between them, Fraser's fingers digging into his back.

He didn't mean to, but he heard his own voice whispering, "Fuck, _Benny_ " when he came.

It took a minute before he could move again, but he shifted over and got a hand down between them. When Kowalski came he gritted his teeth and didn't say anything at all.

 

Ray did the cleanup afterward, getting rid of the condom and making his way to the bathroom to look for a towel or something. His hand was still kind of sticky from the lube. He didn't even know where Kowalski's bathroom was, not that it was hard to find or anything, but it drove home how ridiculous it was that this had happened. There was something cold and nervous in Ray's stomach telling him that he'd just crossed a line. It was a familiar feeling, May in Vegas: first bribe, first hooker, first hit.

Kowalski was asleep by the time Ray got back to the bedroom, which got around the inevitable awkward conversation so neatly that Ray might have suspected him of faking it if he wasn't still such a thorough mess. He didn't think anyone would go to sleep like that on purpose. He'd brought a damp hand towel back from the bathroom, but he couldn't bring himself to wipe Kowalski off. It seemed way too intimate, which was a ridiculous feeling after what they'd just done, but Ray couldn't shake it. It was the guy's own fault, anyway. Lie down with come, get up with dried come. Not rocket science. He could have at least grabbed a tissue, or something from the laundry pile to clean up with.

Instead Ray got dressed. His sense of time was off; he wouldn't have thought that his shirt had been on the floor long enough to wrinkle, but it was a crumpled mess. He got all the way to the door before he stopped and went back, his mother's voice in his head- her hypothetical voice or something, because if she'd actually witnessed this scene she would have been in hysterics- and pulled the sheet up over Kowalski, leaned over to turn off the lamp. Kowalski didn't stir. He was on the right side of the bed, of course, because Stella slept on the left.

Ray closed the door behind him and went down to the Riv. It was late, but not so late that the city was asleep, not on a Friday with the nights just starting to cool down. There were lines outside a couple of clubs, drunk clusters of friends on the sidewalks. Ray was so tired his bones ached. He thought about Kowalski all curled up in his big bed, tried not to wonder if Fraser had a side of the bed now, too. The sex was dangerous enough; he didn't need a whole other fantasy life to get lost in.

 

They were back in the groove at work the next week. Kowalski seemed to have put it all behind him and was loud and annoying as usual, slapping Ray's hands away from the radio dial of the GTO and flicking paper balls at him from across the room when they were both working late. Ray was still a little off-balance, kept catching himself wondering about Fraser and Kowalski together, but he figured he hid it better than Kowalski had been doing. They solved two cases, anyway, which was what mattered.

On Thursday everything took a turn for the bizarre and they ended up chasing a guy with a crossbow through the sewer system. All that was missing was a lecture on the evolution of medieval weaponry and Ray would have believed it was two years ago. He didn't get the lecture, though, and by the time they'd caught the guy, disarmed him, cuffed him, uncuffed him so he could climb up the ladder to the street, and cuffed him again, Ray was in a terrible mood and Kowalski was threatening to use the crossbow on him if he complained about his clothes one more time.

They were both a mess; the woman driving the patrol car they called laughed at them openly, but she had to put crossbow guy in her back seat and he looked even more like a swamp monster than they did. Smelled like one, too. Ray, on the other hand, got to look at the Riv, look at Kowalski, and say, 

"Absolutely not."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Do I look like I’m kidding? 

"You look like you're oozing," muttered Kowalski, making a feint for the car. Ray sidestepped into his way.

"I said no."

"Come on, just put some plastic bags on the seat or something."

"No! And don't tell me you'd get within a mile of the GTO like that, plastic bags or not."

"Nope, but it's not my day to drive, is it?" said Kowalski cheerfully. It looked like he'd backed off but Ray stayed on alert; he wouldn't put it past Kowalski to dive at the Riv when he wasn't paying attention and then claim that since it was already dirty they might as well just go.

"Why are you so eager to get back, anyway? What are you going go do at the station like that?"

"I…didn't think of that," said Kowalski, pointing at Ray like he'd just offered some brilliant insight. Ray resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

"Come on, we're only five or six blocks from my place," he said. "I'll even let you shower."

People stared at them all the way there, which annoyed Ray and seemed to amuse Kowalski. His never-all-that-inner twelve-year-old probably thought being gross was fun. Well, he could enjoy it a little longer, then. Once they were inside Ray shoved him at the kitchen, which was linoleum, and grabbed a trash bag from under the sink.

"Stay there," he said. "Try not to drip on anything. I'll be out in a minute."

"I bet your mother'd be proud of you, letting the guest have the first shower and all," said Kowalski, but he seemed to be staying put.

"So tell on me." 

Ray thought about his dresser, but he cared more about sparing the carpet than about Kowalski seeing him in a towel, so went straight for the bathroom. Clean clothes could wait. For the moment he dumped everything he was wearing in the trash bag and tried not to think about how much money the suit had cost while he showered.

When he opened the bathroom door again Kowalski had his back turned, rummaging in the refrigerator, which was more of a relief that Ray wanted to admit.

"It's all yours," he called, turning the corner to his bedroom with maybe a little too much speed. "If you want to dump your clothes in the bag I'll see if I can get them cleaned along with mine."

"Thanks," called Kowalski, "I love this shirt."

Ray wasn't sure what there was to love- it was a plain gray t-shirt, if his memory served- but maybe it had sentimental value or something. He got dressed and dug around for something Kowalski could wear. He wasn't about to loan out anything he actually cared about, and it wasn't like Kowalski wore anything with buttons anyway. Eventually he unearthed a pair of jeans and a shirt with the Three Strikes Bowling logo that he mostly wore to bed. The shower was still running, so he cracked open the door, tossed the clothes onto the toilet seat, and went to find a snack.

In any sane world that would have been that. In the world where a Mountie had turned Ray's life upside down, the sight of Kowalski walking out of the bathroom with his hair soft and flat across his forehead made Ray's palms sweat and his mouth go dry.

"What?" said Kowalski. "Did I miss a- oh." Ray yanked his gaze off to the side, too late, catching Kowalski's grin out of the corner of his eye. 

"You want another lesson?" he asked, smoothing down his hair with one hand.

"You got anything else to teach?" Ray managed.

"Sure," said Kowalski. He came forward a couple steps and Ray let himself be backed into the counter. He didn't quite want to meet Kowalski's eyes, so he looked instead at the t-shirt, which was sticking a little in places where Kowalski's skin must still be damp. It occurred to him that maybe he should have kept looking, found a shirt that didn't have his history with Stella written all over it.

"You know how I said Fraser likes bedrooms?" Kowalski asked. He was right up against Ray, and his voice had gone low and intent. "That's true, but when he's really desperate and there isn’t enough time-" right, they were still technically working- "well, he sure as hell doesn't mind the nearest wall."

"I’m not messing up two suits in one day," Ray warned, but one of his hands was somehow already in Kowalski's hair, the other one tight on his hip, pulling him in.

Kowalski grinned at him again. "Then take it off."

 

After that they didn't even bother pretending that they were going to stop. They were fucking a couple of times a week, alternating apartments the way they alternated cars at work. Whoever's turn it was to travel decided if they were doing anything by either showing up or not, and once they'd showed it was their turn to wait. Ray was getting good at unspoken agreements. When his apartment was up and he had plans- by which he meant dinner with his family- he made sure to mention it at work, somewhere within Kowalski's earshot. Kowalski either didn't do him the same courtesy or just never had other plans, but either way he was always home when Ray came by.

Not a lot changed from the first time. It turned out that Kowalski never, ever shut up in bed, and also that he had a seemingly inexhaustible list of facts about Fraser.

_He likes everything face-to-face._

_Nipples don't do much for him but his neck and ears are real sensitive._

_He doesn't mind if you bite a little._

_He always tries to keep his eyes open when he comes, but it only works about half the time._

He played his part to the hilt, too, kissing hard and fucking slow and squirming when Ray brushed the creases of his thighs too lightly, even though he couldn't possibly share all of those quirks and preferences with Fraser. Ray started to understand why he got undercover work.

He only asked a question once. They were at his place, Kowalski half-sitting up under him so they were curled together tight. Ray still had his pants on- he had no idea why, but he learned fast and Fraser wanted to be in charge of undressing- and he was jerking Kowalski off, slow and steady.

"Hey," said Ray, interrupting Kowalski's explanation about what was different with Fraser being uncut. "Does he make noise?"

"What?"

"Fraser. Is he loud in bed?" Fraser couldn't possibly be into dirty talk, but Ray could maybe imagine him having some ultra-polite version of Kowalski's sex monologue. Then again, he'd been wrong before.

"Not even slightly," said Kowalski. "At first he was just totally silent. No noises, no words, nothing. After a while he started making sounds, at least, and he would say my name. Nothing else, just that. Ray."

So that was a dead end. Neither of them was going to say that, not in bed with each other, and besides Kowalski had this expression on his face that hurt to look at. It wasn't that Ray didn't know the guy was heartbroken, but he usually hid it under ten layers of anger and an attitude problem. He let Kowalski set the script after that; maybe he was missing a fact or two, but there wasn't going to be a test, and Kowalski was better at judging what he could share and still leave them both able to go to work in the morning and look each other in the eye.

They actually, surprisingly, weren't doing too badly at that. They still ended up yelling at each other a couple of times a week, but no one was having to pull them apart, and they were managing to close cases in between the fights. If they didn't quite have the magic touch that working with Fraser had brought to a stack of case files, well, Kowalski didn't get him locked in meat freezers or wired to explosives, either. 

In October they got a tip on where Al Rosen was keeping the massive pile of automatic weapons he'd stolen, so they were stuck on a grueling week of stakeouts, trading off with Carlson and Mojahed, Huey and Gardino's replacements, and Einhorn, who'd been brought in to cover when Kowalski jumped ship for Canada and whose solve rate was still putting them all to shame even though he worked alone. The tip they were working off had come from one of his sources.

Ray had loved stakeouts with Fraser, especially at the beginning when getting to know him- really getting to know him- was like pulling teeth out of a brick wall. There was something about stakeouts, though, that he'd noticed with every partner on every job over the years. You get two men in a small space where they know they have to stay for hours, trying to keep awake with nothing to do but talk, eye contact disallowed because you were watching whatever you were watching, and secrets were bound to spill. It was just a fact of life. The small, dark space and the no looking put Ray in mind of a confessional, but that wasn't it, because he'd seen it happen to plenty of guys who weren't Catholic.

He was a little worried about a stakeout with Kowalski. The two of them did okay at work or in bed, but you could only talk shop for so long and there was no question of the other. Ray figured an honest, personal conversation between the two of them had maybe a fifty percent chance of coming to blows. Maybe seventy-five. He was hoping that Kowalski would somehow be the exception to the rule; he was objectively the worst at stakeouts, antsy and prone to complaining and to taking his frustration out on bits of the car, which was why they were taking the Goat. It was possible he would just destroy the confessional atmosphere before it started.

They got through the first night okay, mostly through liberal application of the radio. Ray still wanted to strange Kowalski by the time they were done, but at least they hadn't gotten into the minefield of either of their pasts. They didn't make it through the second night.

It was really Ray's fault. Kowalski was bitching about the heat, since they were in that one awful week of October that was trying to be summer again.

"I think I broke some part of me in Canada," said Kowalski. "I used to be able to deal with the heat. I used to like it."

"At least you're wearing short sleeves."

"Nobody's stopping you, Vecchio."

"From what, looking like a hobo?" Still, he undid his tie and put it in the glove compartment. Kowalski rolled down his window, re-learned that while it was cooler outside it smelled pretty strongly of sewage, and rolled it back up again.

"You know what else was great about Canada? No stakeouts," he said, thumping his head back against the headrest, and Ray was really just thinking about how much he wished Kowalski were anywhere else when he said,

"If you liked it so much, why didn't you just stay there?"

"No stakeouts," said Kowalski. Ray saw him look over but he kept his own eyes front. Same boring building, same dark windows. 

"It was different when we were on the quest," said Kowalski. "Out there it was just us. I had nothing but Fraser, he had nothing but me. But then we get back to what they call civilization and suddenly Fraser has this whole life."

"You're telling me you want somebody with nothing in their life but you?" Ray was about to be furious on Stella's behalf, never mind Fraser's. 

"No, no," said Kowalski. "It was fine here in Chicago. It's just, you take away being a cop and there's not much to me. In Canada everything I was was Fraser, the whole reason-dee-whatever. Not that I mind that, I don't need much space, I'm not a space kind of guy, but you can't have something like that going only one way. It's no good. And there's, uh, a million other parts to Fraser, so." He trailed off, waving a hand in the air to illustrate just how many parts of Fraser there were. Ray searched for something to say, but didn't make it in time to beat the awkward silence.

"Plus, without the job I don't really like myself enough to spend that much time with me, y'know?" added Kowalski.

"Yeah," said Ray, although to be honest he would've given a lot to feel like he was the only one in his head. That wasn't the kind of thing you said, though, not even on a stakeout.

"Yeah, whatever," said Kowalski, with one of those abrupt mood swings that Ray could never track. "I'm gonna go get some coffee." He slammed the door behind him, which wasn't really helping them stay unnoticed, but then again it didn't seem likely that anyone in this neighborhood would blink an eye. Ray sat and watched the building. It took Kowalski longer than it should have just to do a corner store run, but he did come back eventually, and Ray didn't mention the thermos of coffee he knew Kowalski had in the back seat. They sat quietly for a minute.

"Fair's fair," said Kowalski eventually. "Why aren't you in Florida? And don't tell me it's none of my business. You date my wife, it's my business."

"She's your ex-wife, you know."

"Yeah, I noticed that." He sounded so rueful that Ray bit back the dig about Kowalski's powers of observation.

"She broke up with me," he said instead. 

"That would do it."

"That's not why," he said, because really Kowalski was the only person in the world he could tell this to without consequences. There was Fraser, but Fraser knowing it was a consequence in and of itself. "After we had the conversation- you know, The Conversation-"

"I know."

"-I figured I'd give her some time to go back to the house, get some of her things. We were in the office at the bowling alley, which is a stupid place to break up, but maybe she planned it that way so she could leave afterward, I don't know. Anyway, I'm sitting there after she leaves and I remember feeling proud. Really pleased with myself, you know? I remember it so clearly, I had a Sundrop, it's this weird soda that's really popular down there, I was sitting at the desk, and I was thinking that I'd done a great job at playing Stella's boyfriend being broken up with. No one was going to see through me. It was a relief, I was safe."

He risked a glance over and then turned back again, because Kowalski was watching him, not the building.

"So I figured I'd better get back to Chicago if I ever wanted a shot at believing I was myself. That's why."

"Jesus, Vecchio." Kowalski sounded quietly horrified.

"Yeah, I know."

The street was still deserted. Ray leaned his head against the window, wishing something would happen, or at least that he could go home and get some rest. He was so sick of being tired. 

After a moment he added, "Fraser thinks I should go to therapy."

It was good to know that no matter what, they could still laugh over Fraser being an idiot, like some weird partner bonding exercise. Welsh would be proud. 

 

Of course, he would be anything but proud if he knew that Kowalski spent the night in Ray's bed afterward. They slept together a lot, more than Ray would have expected for a twisted partners-with-benefits thing, because Kowalski could never manage to keep his eyes open for more than five minutes after coming. He ended up sleeping over almost every time they were at Ray's place. Eventually Ray just gave up and cleared space for a couple of his extra shirts, started buying coffee for two.

Kowalski slept like a man who'd been married most of his life, sprawled a little but never, ever crossing the invisible line in the center of the bed, and not even stirring at any of Ray's comings and goings. Ray had been able to do that once, but he and Ange hadn't lasted long enough for the habits to stick. It didn't really matter now. The last time he'd slept easy was in a Chicago hospital, just starting to pick bits of Ray Vecchio back out of Armando Langoustini and so stoned on pain medication that it didn't even bother him when he lost track of which parts were who.  
After they weaned him off the good stuff he could blame the bullet wound for a while, but eventually even that stopped bothering him. There was no physical reason for him not to be sleeping. He was doing well, walking around during the day without even the shadow of Vegas on him usually, but the trade off was that when he closed his eyes at night he was reliving every last thing he'd done.

It wasn't dreaming; he'd stopped having nightmares after a couple years on the force, figured most cops did, though maybe not still-can't-handle-a-corpse-Kowalski. It just took hours before his mind would quiet down enough to let him sleep. He'd learned in Florida that there wasn't anything to do about it, no tricks that worked, he just had to lie there and think until he was done. Kowalski snoring lightly beside him didn't make sleep come any faster, but it was kind of nice to have him there anyway, somebody who was part of Chicago, part of his life now, instead of just the empty room.

He was surprised when Kowalski showed up the night of the stakeout. Ray would have expected him to back off a little, play things cool, maybe pretend the conversation hadn't even happened, but it turned out that he was telling the truth about not needing space. Ray might have liked a little time to pull his own dignity back together. He'd gone over to Kowalski's two nights before, though, and he hadn't said anything about having plans, so the only way he could control it now was to go out somewhere and let Kowalski show up at an empty apartment. That seemed to say _never again_ more than it said _not tonight_ , though. God knew Kowalski's ego was fragile enough; he'd probably think Ray was calling things off because of what he'd said about leaving Canada. Besides, Ray didn't really have anywhere to go this late at night.

He was still thinking about their conversation when Kowalski knocked. Maybe Kowalski's head was still in Canada the way Ray's was in Florida, because he wouldn't quite meet Ray's eyes and he had them naked in about a minute flat, which was fast even for them. His Fraser monologue was still right on cue, though.

Ray couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that their conversation had left him with. He'd wanted some space tonight because he didn't think he could give up this thing they were doing but it was eating away at him a little, too, un-grounding. In bed with Kowalski it sometimes seemed like Fraser was the realest person in the room. Kowalski's endless information was never personal. Other than the one time Ray had pushed him, he might as well have learned it from a book for all it involved any reference to himself. He kept to his act, too, which meant Kowalski was playing Fraser and Ray was almost certainly playing Kowalski, at least a little, maybe playing some fantasy version of himself, maybe a combination, but it almost didn't matter. Sleeping with Fraser for real would have been about what Ray wanted, too, but sleeping with Kowalski's fantasy of Fraser meant they could be doing things neither of them liked just because it was the way Fraser preferred them. 

Ray could handle it- he would have stopped if he couldn't, or at least he'd have liked to think he would- but he didn't want to handle it tonight, so he went for the one flaw he'd noticed in Kowalski's performance. Noticed might have been too strong a word, actually. He hadn't really thought about it, but the part of his brain that remembered the order of gunshot sounds paid attention to Kowalski, too, and when he needed it there was a theory, already fully formed.

He tested it by running a hand up Kowalski's chest, brushing just casually over a nipple, like an accident, and watching hard. There it was, just the tiniest twitch. It was one thing to make your body do what you needed it to do, but it was another thing entirely to keep it from doing what it wanted to do, and anyone who'd seen Kowalski at a crime scene could guess that he wasn't quite as good at the latter as he'd like. Ray tried it again, getting another twitch and a pissed-off look from Kowalski.

"I told you his nipples aren't sensitive."

"Yeah, I heard you the first time."

"So what are you doing?"

Ray ignored him, switching to the other side. There was no sense in pretending now that Kowalski had caught on, so he didn't bother, just rubbed his thumb deliberately back and forth over Kowalski's nipple and watched tension seep slowly into every line of his body. He'd bet anything that Kowalski was trying to hold still, which really wasn't his strong suit. His breath was already hitching. Ray kept going for a minute, watching the crease between his eyebrows, feeling the muscles in his thigh quivering where they were pressed together, and then bent down to use his mouth. 

The first touch of his tongue was like a string snapping. Kowalski's hips came off the bed and his hand came down on the back of Ray's head and he said,

"Fuck, _Vecchio_ ," like he couldn't possibly help it.

Fraser had never called once him that, but even so it was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard.

 

In the morning Kowalski was still hunched over a cup of coffee in his underwear when it was a reasonable time to leave, so Ray prised his apartment key off its ring and dropped it on the table before he headed out. Kowalski ended up being more than half an hour late; Ray suspected he'd stopped home for a change of clothes. No one at the station seemed to care. It turned out that Rosen had eventually shown up around three in the morning and been promptly arrested by Carlson and Mojahed in a fit of competence that they had yet to quit bragging about. It was going to get old by the end of the day, but Ray could forgive a lot in exchange for not having to do another stakeout. He was a little afraid of what he'd say.

"No more getting paid to sit around, huh," said Kowalski when he finally showed up, coming to lean over Ray's shoulder. He didn't sound upset about it.

"Guess it's back to real police work," said Ray. "You have a good feeling about any of these?"

Kowalski flipped a couple pages in the array of open cases, then snagged two folders in their entirety.

"Give me a minute, I'll let you know," he said, carrying them back to his own desk. When Ray looked down his key was sitting in the empty space where the second file had been. He pocketed it, and that was that.

Things went back to normal, or at least what was passing for normal in Ray's life these days. He went over to Kowalski's place a few nights later and stuck to their usual script and it was fine, no unexpected heart-to-hearts and no names except Fraser's in bed. Kowalski was at his place two nights after that- he was late in the morning again, making Ray consider whether it would be too weird just to get him a key- and that weekend he want back to Kowalski's, and while all of that was going on they solved a murder that had been in the pile for weeks, too.

The time after that, Kowalski had barely thrown his jacket over the back of Ray's couch when the phone rang, and it was Fraser.

"Benny, long time no speak," he said, watching Kowalski go suddenly still in his peripheral vision.

"I thought I might catch you at this hour," said Fraser in his ear. "There was a slight altercation at the community center, which kept us here quite a bit later than usual, waiting for a variety of parents and guardians to be located."

"It's not actually a great time," said Ray, before Fraser could get too into his explanation. "I've got company."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I should have asked."

"No big deal, it's just Kowalski," said Ray, keeping his tone casual. It was a big deal; with anyone else he would have made them sit and wait until he was done talking to Fraser, but that was out of the question. 

"Ah," said Fraser, like he could suddenly feel the tension in Ray's living room from four thousand miles away. "Working late?"

"Hey, if you can convince criminals to keep a nine to five schedule I'll give you a medal," said Ray, which sounded like agreement but wasn't actually an outright lie.

"I know the feeling," said Fraser, and then in a different tone, "Will he speak to me?"

 _Will he speak to me?_ was a world of difference from _Can I talk to him?_ , thought Ray, raising his eyebrows and tilting the phone in a silent question. Kowalski bolted for the bathroom, which was a clear enough answer. 

"We really should get to work," he said.

"Understood," said Fraser, sounding like he understood Kowalski's unspoken message rather than Ray's excuse.

"I'll try you tomorrow if I can, or Friday. Get home safe."

"I will. Good luck with your case."

"Thanks." Ray hung up with a sigh. Kowalski's confession had shed a little light on things, but he still couldn't put the full picture together. If it had just been Kowalski deciding that he couldn't handle Canada and leaving, you would think Fraser would be angry and Kowalski apologetic, not the other way around. There was no way to ask about it without sounding like he was taking sides, though, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Kowalski reappeared in the doorway and they looked at each other for a long moment. It seemed strange to go straight from the phone call to their usual routine, especially with the reminder that Kowalski kind of hated Fraser a little right now. Kowalski was already here, though, and it wasn't like Ray would kick him out.

"You want something to eat?" he asked finally, proving that under everything he was still definitely his mother's son.

"Yeah, sure," said Kowalski. He sounded grateful for the suggestion, like maybe he hadn't known what to do either.

They ended up talking shop over dinner, which was easy and natural and didn't involve much in the way of personal feelings, unless you counted Ray's feeling that it was the boss and Kowalski's feeling that it was the wife. Of course, that ended up with Kowalski having an epiphany with his mouth still full and the two of them putting everything on hold to go arrest the father-in-law. It had the desired effect, at least, in that when they eventually got back to Ray's apartment the awkwardness of Fraser's phone call was long forgotten.

Fraser had actually predicted the father-in-law, not that Ray was going to mention that. He'd described the case the last time they'd talked. He made a mental note to tell Fraser how it had turned out when they managed to make contact again, hopefully without Kowalski anywhere in the vicinity.

It occurred to him that he maybe should have felt guilty, talking to Fraser, or uncomfortable, or something, but somehow he didn't. Every so often he'd think of something Kowalski had told him in the middle of a conversation, but for the most part he just kept the Fraser he played phone tag with separate from the fantasy-Fraser Kowalski was playing in bed, and it was fine. Easier than the mental gymnastics he'd done in Vegas. 

It was Fraser who told him that Kowalski's birthday was coming up. He didn't ask if Fraser was going to do something; it seemed pretty obvious that anything Kowalski got in the mail would be returned right back to sender, but odds were probably only fifty-fifty that Fraser would consider that a deterrent. Ray picked up a box of that Canadian candy Kowalski liked- he'd heard enough rants about the inferiority of M&Ms to last a lifetime, so it seemed a safe choice- and called it a day. 

On the actual morning of October twenty-sixth, though, he was suddenly unsure. What if buying something Canadian was sending a message he didn't mean, or at least bringing up everything they mostly avoided? He didn't want to deal with Kowalski in a sulk for the rest of the day. It was too late to change his mind, though, unless he was going to just pretend he didn't know what day it was, so he went ahead.

"Morning," said Kowalski curiously when Ray stopped at his desk instead of following his usual coat-coffee-chair routine. 

"Happy birthday," said Ray, tossing the box on top of the file Kowalski was reading. He apparently shouldn't have worried; Kowalski looked genuinely thrilled.

"Hey, you didn't tell us it was your birthday!" called Mojahed from across the room. "We would have done something!"

"Maybe that's why he didn't tell you," said Ray. Kowalski had a handful of chocolate in his mouth and was dumping another handful into his coffee, but he pointed to Ray with his free hand to show that he was right. He was such a kid sometimes. 

"Aw, come on, you don't trust us?" said Carlson.

"Nope," said Kowalski cheerfully, if thickly. 

"I would have planned you a party if I'd known," complained Frannie, coming over to perch on Kowalski's desk. "I thought your birthday was in May!"

Kowalski's smile went tight. 

"No, Frannie," said Ray, gently as he could, so Kowalski didn't have to. "That's my birthday."

"But I thought Fraser- oh," said Frannie. She looked at Ray and then back at Kowalski. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay," said Kowalski, shaking some more candy into his hand. The box wasn't going to last him an hour at this rate.

Ray was pretty sure it wasn't okay, not really. In truth he was kind of amazed that Kowalski had stuck around the two-seven. Obviously things had been different for the two of them, but you couldn't have paid Ray any price to try to set up some kind of life in Vegas, even one unrelated to Langoustini. But here was Kowalski, working the same job, in the same station, looking right at his old desk- Einhorn had claimed it before either of them had come back to Chicago, which neatly preempted that fight- and keeping his head down whenever somebody called _Vecchio_. Ray had seen him twitch once or twice, when he was distracted by something else and the instincts took over, but he never looked up.

Ray headed over to his own desk. Kowalski had gone back to his file, which would have been anyone else's cue that the conversation was over, but Frannie could talk her way through a brick wall when she wanted to, which was often. 

"So, you have any big plans for tonight?" she said. Kowalski, surprisingly, put his file down again and smiled at her.

"I thought I might go out dancing," he said. "Celebrate a little." He got a chorus of jeers, of course. Nobody could just say something like that without getting shit for it, but this had a dangerous edge because it was Kowalski, and after Fraser everybody knew Kowalski was queer. You don't get to keep that kind of secret when you decide to go play house in Canada, no matter whether it works out or not. 

Frannie leapt to his defense, which surprised Ray a little. He could never remember that they were friends.

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen him dance," she told the room at large. "I bet you'd all be begging for lessons. He's incredible."

"What can I say, it's a hit with the ladies," said Kowalski, tilting his head at Frannie. He sounded amused. 

"Didn't think it was ladies he wanted to impress," muttered Carlson. In a second Kowalski was half out of his chair, fists clenched.

"You say something?" he growled. Ray's heart was pounding. He divided the room up in his mind, not even thinking about it, just instinct, figuring out which way everyone would jump. Him and Kowalski and Frannie on one side. Carlson on the other, Mojahed was less of a jerk but would stick with his partner when push came to shove. No way to tell what Einhorn would do. The desk sergeant leaning in the doorway was definitely with Carlson. Hell, most people within earshot were probably with Carlson. Welsh's door was closed.

"He didn't say anything," said Mojahed, weighting his words. "Come on, Andy, we've got work to do." 

Kowalski sat down slowly, watching them go, and Ray let out a breath. The room went back to being just a room. There was a report in front of him, but instead of the words he was seeing Mojahed's face as he spoke, the quick glance from Carlson to Welsh's office and back that Ray might not have caught if he hadn't been on such high alert.

It was another piece of evidence for a theory he'd had for a while: that Kowalski and Welsh had some kind of unspoken agreement, too. He suspected that Welsh was keeping most of the station from saying or doing anything too terrible, and in exchange Kowalski was forbidden from fighting anyone over whatever small remarks or sideways glances Welsh couldn't control. It seemed like the only possible explanation for why Kowalski wasn't getting into regular fistfights. Besides, it fit. The two of them had this cute father-son dynamic going on that always made Ray uneasy, not knowing what tone to take.

Carlson and Mojahed stayed gone for most of the day, which eased the tension in the station. Kowalski left right at five with a grin, saying he had to go make himself pretty for his night out. Ray wasn't sure if he was intentionally trying to provoke someone or if he just didn't care.

He stayed late to wade through their backlog of paperwork, which went so much faster without Kowalski that sometimes it was worth doing more than his fair share just so it would be finished. He was about two-thirds of the way through the pile when a headache started creeping up the back of his neck, so he called it a day and went home. A wave of exhaustion hit him in the car. He got takeout and sat in front of the television with it, but he couldn't keep his attention focused on anything, and after a while he decided to try for an early night. The last couple of nights he'd been sleeping even worse than usual, who knew why, but maybe it meant he was tired enough to actually crash.

That turned out to be wishful thinking. He gave up sometime late, maybe around eleven by his internal clock- rule one of insomnia was not to watch the time, something he'd learned back when Stella was still helping him look for tips- and wandered into the kitchen. Might as well do something if he was going to be awake.

When he'd gotten back to Chicago in August Ray had set about teaching himself to cook. He hadn't been completely incapable before, but now he was working his way through all the family recipes, the familiar smells and tastes that he'd missed in Vegas. It was odd, the way the brain worked. Months after he'd mostly trained himself out of missing Chicago, when whole weeks passed between thoughts of his family, he'd still find himself craving this dish or that, real pasta sauce, the special Gambardella salsiccia that had supposedly been handed down his mother's side of the family for generations. Maybe there were Langoustini recipes like that, but Ray had never seen them. Armando ate out or ordered in. He barely went near the kitchen.

Ray had been surprised to find that he actually liked the process of cooking, not just the results. There was something soothing about it. It took enough concentration that he wasn't thinking about other things, but it was easy, low stakes. He was only ever cooking for himself, and now sometimes Kowalski, who'd started showing up earlier in the evening when he came in a transparent attempt to get something besides delivery pizza for dinner. Kowalski was no pressure, though. His standards were pretty much nonexistent. 

Ray was making his first attempt at his aunt's famous risotto- he'd bought the ingredients intending to try it over the weekend, but he needed something to do with his hands tonight or he was going to go crazy- when the buzzer sounded. His hands were covered in squash innards, so he hit the intercom button with his elbow, frowning.

"It's me," said Kowalski, which was his standard greeting. Ray buzzed him up without answering, also standard, and after a second went to wash his hands. It was Kowalski's turn to come over, which meant it was his call, but Ray really hadn't been expecting him. He had a fleeting thought that it could actually be police business. That was quickly disproven; Kowalski pushed him up against the wall and kissed him almost as soon as the door had closed, a weird echo of the first time this had happened. It was almost as startling; these days they mostly made a little small talk first, carrying over arguments from work, even if they weren't eating. Kowalski actually tasted of the beer he'd been drinking this time.

Ray kissed back for a minute before shoving at Kowalski's chest to make him back off a couple steps. Kowalski went, blinking at him, and then broke into a sudden grin.

"Wow, those are ugly pajamas," he said, apparently getting his first good look at Ray. "I mean, I know you are into ugly pajamas, but those take the cake."

"You're such a charmer," said Ray. He was getting his first good look at Kowalski, too. His dancing outfit wasn't really that different from his everyday wear, black jeans instead of blue and a t-shirt just a little tighter than usual, clinging to the muscles in his arms, but the overall effect somehow looked like an entirely different Kowalski. He was wearing a couple rings that Ray hadn't seen before, too, balancing right on the line between punk and queer. He looked amped up like he got before a bust but without the same focus, like he was letting all that energy go loose instead of channeling it down the barrel of a gun. 

"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em," said Kowalski. He'd gotten closer again, had one hand on Ray's chest. "You weren't asleep, were you?"

"No, I was cooking," said Ray, and then kind of wished he hadn't admitted that. Kowalski's mouth was on his neck, though, it was distracting. He shivered a little and tilted his head back against the wall.

"Good," said Kowalski. "That can wait, right?" He was already half-hard against Ray's hip. Ray wondered briefly who he'd been dancing with, whether he'd meant to go home with them, what had happened. 

"Onions will burn," he said. 

"Turn them off," murmured Kowalski. He kissed his way up to Ray's ear and spoke right into it.

"You know, Fraser never asks for sex. Never straight-up asks, not in words." He backed off an inch, just enough to get his hands between their bodies and start unbuttoning Ray's pajama top. "He gets this look on his face, though, all of his attention focused right there, not seeing anything else, and then he'll reach out, like if he can touch you a question well enough he won't have to say the words."

"Okay, yeah," said Ray, and dragged Kowalski's head up to kiss him, because he wanted to, because that's what he would do if Fraser ever looked at him like that. Kowalski made a hungry little noise and abandoned his shirt to pull him closer, plaster them together up against the wall. 

"Onions," managed Ray. "Give me a minute."

 

Kowalski was amped up, moving fast, so it took Ray a little while to get his head clear. When the thought came to him he was opening Kowalski up with three fingers, nice and slow even though Kowalski didn't need it, because Fraser liked it that way. 

"Hey," he interrupted. Saying anything in bed with Kowalski was always interrupting, thought at the moment it was only a stream of general encouragement, not a specific Fraser story. "We could do something different tonight."

"What?" asked Kowalski, propping himself on his elbows to look down at Ray. 

"It's your birthday. Why don't we do something you're into?"

"I'm into this."

"Yeah, I know, but something else. Birthday sex is supposed to be all about you."

"This is fine, really." He nudged his hips up a little, a reminder that Ray had stopped moving, but Ray just pulled his hand away.

"It's not a big deal, we can go back to this tomorrow. Come on, tell me what you like."

Kowalski's expression changed, went challenging, and in a flash Ray was sure that he was going to say he wanted to top. It only made sense, knowing what he did about Fraser. Ray was pretty sure he could handle it. It would have been lying to say he wasn't nervous, and he was a little worried he wouldn't be able to make it good, but he could do it.

"I like it rough," said Kowalski, "and I like to be held down."

Ray stopped.

Armando Langoustini wasn't a sex fiend or anything, but he was definitely a flirt. That was easy intel. So Ray got to Vegas and flirted, with casino floor managers and showgirls and singers and, once he figured it out, a little more discreetly with the waiter at the restaurant where some of the less clandestine deals went down, the one who always dropped everything to serve him when he walked in the door. It wasn't a particularly difficult piece of the cover; Ray had always been a little bit of a flirt himself. 

What he didn't realize was just how successful Langoustini's flirting would be. Money and power were always a draw, and maybe from time to time someone just honestly found him attractive, but mostly it was that Armando Langoustini had a reputation for not liking the word no. There were people in Vegas who didn't know him, of course, but Armando didn't go for tourists. The people he took to bed knew that he owned them, or their families, or their bosses. Even if someone was genuinely interested, he wasn't the type to ask for opinions or permission if there was something he wanted once he'd gotten them home. It was one of the things that kept Ray up at night. He wasn't going to hold anyone down after that, didn't want Kowalski in his power, even if it was just for show.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually. Kowalski quirked a bitter half-smile at the ceiling.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," he said. "Don't worry about it. Fraser wouldn't do it either."

Ray didn't quite know what to say to that. He wanted to hear the story there, to know, but the details of Fraser and Kowalski's relationship were the last thing he could ask about. 

"Here, I've got an idea," said Kowalski, shaking off his mood. "Something Fraser likes that I haven't showed you yet. Come on, lie down. Face up, yeah." He nudged Ray's shoulder until he rolled back to the other side of the bed and stretched out. Kowalski sat up, grabbing the condom Ray had left torn open on the bedside table- he'd learned his lesson about lube and packaging- and Ray tried not to tense up. Him on his back and Kowalski reaching for the condom meant one of two things was about to happen, and either one would fit _something Fraser likes that I haven't showed you yet_. 

The condom went on Ray, though. He hadn't even gotten his breath back from the feel of it sliding onto his cock when Kowalski straddled him and started sinking down slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the way Fraser liked everything. 

"He doesn't want to do it like this all that often," said Kowalski, "but that doesn't mean he doesn't love it." His voice was a little strained and he was frowning, hopefully with concentration and not with pain. Ray didn't say anything. It was Kowalski's show; he could stop if he wanted to.

He did stop eventually, going totally still once he was all the way down. Ray gritted his teeth and made himself wait, even though he wanted to move more than anything, wanted to grab Kowalski's hips and make _him_ move. It felt like an eternity that he held himself there, watching the tension slowly ease out of Kowalski's muscles, hearing him breathe.

"It was the only way I could get him to pin me," said Kowalski, but the words didn't even assemble into any kind of meaning because finally, _finally_ he was moving. Ray choked off a noise and tried to make himself focus. "You know, hands on my chest," continued Kowalski, though he kept his own hands to the side, which Ray was grateful for. "I don't think he even realized what he was doing, he would just get so into it. He got this look on his face."

"Yeah?" managed Ray, when it seemed like Kowalski was just going to stop there. 

"Yeah. I don't even-" Kowalski shook his head, a little jerkily. He had his eyes closed. "I don't know. Like nothing could ever be as good."

He tried, but it was harder to imagine Fraser in Kowalski's place like this. Kowalski was just too light on top of him, too wiry and long-limbed, not solid enough. Ray hovered a hand over Kowalski's thigh.

"Can I?" he asked. Kowalski opened his eyes, glanced down, shook his head.

"He likes to draw it out," he said. "Doesn't want a hand on him until the very end." 

"No, just-" Ray said, and ran out of words- he couldn't seem to get his breath back, hadn't formed more than half a sentence since Kowalski had straddled him- so instead he put his hand down on Kowalski's thigh, rubbed up and down, just wanting to touch him.

"Yeah, that's- that's good," said Kowalski. He was frowning again, shifting a little, looking for the angle. Ray couldn't do a whole lot to help from this position. He tried pulling his knees up so his feet were flat on the bed, giving himself a little more leverage and Kowalski something to lean against if he wanted it. Kowalski went forward instead, bracing his hands on the bed by Ray's sides and making a sharp noise when he found what he was looking for. He sped up a little, like he couldn't help it, muscles straining under Ray's hand. 

_It's okay,_ Ray wanted to say, _I don't care what you do, that was the point of birthday sex,_ but he wasn't going to risk Kowalski stopping for another argument. Maybe what he really, honestly wanted was to recapture exactly how Fraser had done it. 

He slowed down again, sure enough, pulling a groan from Ray. Kowalski looked down at him with a little smile. Ray found himself thinking that for all their differences the two of them did have similar eyes, Fraser and Kowalski, and for a second he could imagine Kowalski's expression on Fraser's face, a little glazed but pleased with himself all the same. It was kind of disorienting. Ray tightening his hand on Kowalski's thigh, ran the other one up his arm to his shoulder.

"He can go a long time, too," said Kowalski. He was aiming for smug but his words were a coming out little too ragged to actually get there. 

"What if I can't?" asked Ray. He wasn't going to win any prizes for sounding cool either. 

"Try," Kowalski told him. He slowed down even more, and Ray found some hidden store of willpower and somehow managed not to grab him by the hips and just drag him down onto his cock in the rhythm he wanted. Kowalski was dedicated to his damn performance, that was for sure. He kept going until Ray was moving helplessly underneath him, straining to thrust upward against his weight. Just when he couldn't stand it anymore Kowalski stopped altogether. He tugged at Ray's shoulder until he got with the program and scrambled up to his elbows, and then Kowalski leaned down and kissed him hard and messy, gasping into his mouth when Ray couldn't stop his hips from hitching. 

"All right, come on, touch me," Kowalski said when he finally pulled away. Ray wrapped a hand around his cock, going as fast as he thought he could without getting corrected for Fraser's preferences. Kowalski didn't seem like he was paying much attention to the particulars, anyway. He'd broken off into profanity the second Ray had touched him, rocking up hard into his hand. Fraser might like it slow, but Fraser also had the self-control of a saint, and Ray had a feeling that Kowalski's performance had been harder than it looked. 

"Yeah, come on," Kowalski gritted out, rhythm faltering a little as he tried to grind down on Ray's cock and up into his hand at the same time. "Come on, Vecchio, fuck, you can go harder than that." Ray didn't know quite what he meant so he just ratcheted everything up a notch, tighter and faster and as much strength as he could manage with his feet planted and Kowalski's full weight on top of him. He must have gotten at least part of it right because Kowalski suddenly flailed out a hand to grab Ray's arm hard and came, muttering, "fuck, _fuck_ ," and digging his nails in.

Ray waited until he'd opened his eyes again, barely, before wrapping his hands around Kowalski's hipbones and tugging.

"Let me?" he managed.

"Sure, go for it," said Kowalski, so Ray flipped them, not quite gracefully but it worked. Kowalski even found some reserve of strength to pull his knees back and give Ray a little room. He thrust in once, twice, groaning at the feeling of suddenly, finally having some leverage to work with, going hard. Three times and that was it, he was coming, burying his face in Kowalski's neck and shuddering. 

 

"Happy birthday," he mumbled when he'd pulled himself together enough to speak. Kowalski laughed.

"Get off, you're heavy," he said. Ray pulled out of him gingerly and flopped on his back on the other side of the bed. Kowalski stretched his legs out, hissing. "Well, that's one way to celebrate not being as young as you used to be," he said, wincing a little as he stretched.

"You okay?"

"Oh yeah, fine. Just be a little sore tomorrow, that's all. It's not a good birthday if you don't limp a little afterward, right?" He gave Ray a contented smile and then threw an arm over his face and to all appearances went to sleep.

Ray rolled his eyes. He was a mess, Kowalski's come on his chest and hand and the used condom to deal with, but it took him a minute to go clean up and put his pajamas back on. His knees were kind of shaky, even though Kowalski had been the one doing all the work. He brought a washcloth back and swiped at the place where he'd grabbed Kowalski with a sticky hand, since that was kind of his fault. Anything more than that Kowalski could deal when he woke up.

Ray pulled the sheet up over both of them and lay there for a while, listening to Kowalski breathe. His limbs felt like they were made of cement but his mind still wasn't shutting down. It was nights like this that made him regret his decision to swear off alcohol, but in the morning he was always glad, no exceptions. 

In the end he padded back out to the kitchen and finished making the risotto. There wasn't much else to do, and he didn't want to leave the onions out all night anyway. He thought it came out pretty well. 

 

After the almost-incident on Kowalski's birthday Ray gave some thought to the map of the station he'd drawn in his head, lines of allegiance that hopefully would never be tested, but the whole thing just made him anxious. The fact that everyone knew about Kowalski only made things more dangerous for Ray. He felt kind of bad about thinking that, but it was true. If someone saw the Riv outside some other cop's apartment they might assume it was work related, or at least wait for an explanation, but if he got caught at Kowalski's the only thing anybody was going to think was the truth. Ray wasn't sure he could handle that. 

Kowalski, surprisingly, could. He got angry, sure, never pretended not to hear an insult or see a look, but once he was done getting in whoever's face he was done. The day after his birthday he was joking around with Carlson like nothing had happened. Ray, on the other hand, was drawing lines in his head, feeling too exposed without the wall at his back. It was harder to keep an eye on things from his new desk, and even if Kowalski was over it Ray was watching Carlson, and hard.

It paid off, if you could call it that, about two weeks later. They were working a really nasty case, a teenaged hooker shot three times and left behind a dumpster. They had his roommate in Interview Two, a skinny kid called Martín who was obviously also a hooker and obviously under eighteen, although he wasn't admitting either of those facts. Ray didn't really care. They weren't trying to pin anything on him, just get him to give them some kind of information to go on before somebody got their paperwork in order and figured out he was a minor. He wasn't going to give them anything if they had to jump through a million hoops to get it. He'd talked to Kowalski a little when they'd first tracked him down, but even just having two of them in the room was making the kid clam up, so Ray let Kowalski have it and went back to his desk to wait. 

If he hadn't already been on alert he never would have caught Carlson saying,

"Do you think it's a good idea, leaving Kowalski alone in there?"

"What do you mean?" asked Mojahed, while Ray stared down hard at Martín's roommate's file and clenched his jaw.

"You know, the witness they've got. You're not worried about that kid being safe? With Kowalski, you know-"

"Don't be an idiot," said Mojahed, sounding like he was only half paying attention.

"If you're sure," said Carlson. Ray was pretty sure he was actually concerned, not just saying it to be a jackass, though he didn't know if that made it better or worse. A couple minutes later Carlson slipped out- to take a quick look through the one-way mirror just in case, unless Ray missed his guess- and Ray took that as his cue to head into Welsh's office and close the door behind him.

"Can I help you, detective?" said Welsh, pointedly putting down the phone he'd been dialing. He didn't even have to say _this had better be good_. Ray figured that getting straight to the point was probably the best idea.

"Carlson just said he didn't trust Kowalski alone in a room with a teenage boy. You know, the roommate from the Murphy case. In case he took advantage of him."

Welsh rubbed a hand across his forehead. "All right, I'll talk to him. Thanks."

"Sure." Ray turned to go, but paused as a thought occurred to him. "Oh, um, if you could not mention that I was the one who told you, that'd be great."

"Anything else?"

"And maybe don't tell Kowalski about it at all?"

"Sure, Vecchio. While I’m at it, is it a secret that you think Carlson has cooties? Should I tell Kowalski that you only tug on his pigtails because you have a crush on him? Am I running a police station or a playground, here?"

"Definitely a police station. Sorry," said Ray, thankful that his poker face was better than it once had been, and got out of there as fast as he could.

 

As it turned out, he could have saved himself the humiliation; it didn't stay secret for long. Two days later they had the guy Martín had reluctantly described in for questioning, a real scumbag that both of them had a gut feeling about, but gut feelings didn't amount to much if you couldn't turn them into confessions. Around two in the afternoon Ray decided to take a break, let Kowalski have free reign to play bad cop while he got some lunch.

He heated up the container of leftover soup he'd brought and sat in the break room to eat. The problem with taking up cooking as a hobby was that even if you halved some of the recipes- anything passed down through his family was meant for feeding, well, his family- you still ended up with too much food. Feeding Kowalski once or twice a week helped some, but not enough.

After a couple minutes Carlson came in and sat down with a vending machine sandwich, making Ray wish he'd thought to bring a file with him or something. He couldn't very well get up and leave, though, so he gritted his teeth and managed small talk. The trick to Carlson was asking about his kids. If you got him talking you could just nod along, pretending you cared about the difference between being a mouse or a snowflake or whatever in this year's Nutcracker, and he never noticed.

Ray was mostly zoned out, thinking about the case, when Kowalski burst into the room and slammed his hands down on the table, leaning over to get in Carlson's face. He had a look on his face that Ray was going to categorize as _dangerous_.

"I hear you got a problem with me," he said.

"What?" said Carlson, completely taken aback. Ray didn't feel sorry for him at all. He did, however, put the lid back on his soup, in case there was going to be more pounding on things.

"Let me put it another way," said Kowalski. "You got a problem with me, maybe you should have the balls to come say it to my face."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Carlson. _Don't get up,_ Ray thought. You felt stupid sitting down while Kowalski was raging at you, but odds were Kowalski would feel stupid taking a swing at someone in a chair, so mostly he just yelled until he was done.

Carlson got up.

Ray sighed, and got up too. There was a table between the two of them, and he was on Kowalski's side of it, so maybe he could manage to keep this from getting too out of hand.

"I'm talking about how you think Martín Varela shouldn't be left in a room with me. 'Cause I might take advantage of him, right? 'Cause I might fuck him?" 

"I never said that."

"Yeah, well, my sources say you did." Ray's stomach sank. He had a feeling this wasn't going to end well for him.

"So I thought to myself, why would Carlson think something like that about me? What would make him think I'm some kind of sick pervert? That's not the kind of thing you just assume about a guy, y'know, without any evidence to back it up."

"Well-" Carlson started, but Kowalski cut him off. He was practically yelling now; they were attracting an audience.

"And then I realized it was because of Fraser. It was because of Fraser, right? Because I fucked Fraser? Well, let me tell you something. You weren't around when Fraser was here, so maybe you don't know much about him, but let me fill you in. The thing about Fraser was, he wasn't a witness, he wasn't a prostitute, and he wasn't _sixteen_!"

"All right, Kowalski, he's sorry," said Mojahed from the door. Kowalski didn't even look at him.

"Yeah? Are you sorry?"

"I'm sorry-"

"'Cause you know, maybe we're coming from different contextual backgrounds here-" there was Fraser-inspired turn of phrase if Ray had ever heard one- "but the academy I went to, they taught us that that's called witness intimidation, and solicitation, and oh, right, statutory rape. Which are things we're supposed to protect people from. And if they taught you that the first thing you think of when you get a police officer and a witness in a room is sex, then maybe somebody needs to take a closer look at your training, don't you think?"

"Come on, that's enough," said Ray. He put a hand on Kowalski's shoulder, though he kept it light. He was Kowalski's partner; that was his job, just like Mojahed's job was to stop Carlson from saying too many stupid things. 

Kowalski rounded on him in an instant.

"And you! Thanks a lot for the backup on this one. What, you think I'm too much of a faggot to stand up for myself?"

Ray closed his eyes. This was the part where Kowalski outed him to the whole station, he knew it was coming, even kind of deserved it. 

Instead, there was the smash of Kowalski's fist hitting the wall next to his head. Ray jumped a little, opened his eyes to see Kowalski swearing and cradling his hand. 

"Shut up," he said, although Ray hadn't been about to say anything. "We still have a perp to deal with, if you're not too busy being a tattletale."

He shouldered his way out through the throng at the door. Ray shrugged an apology to the room at large and followed, back to Interview One where Kowalski had apparently left their guy under guard.

They got a confession pretty quick; Kowalski's bloody knuckles definitely helped his bad cop routine. Once they'd heard enough he slammed out of the room, leaving Ray to deal with all the processing, though he didn't mind that too much. The paperwork you had to fill out for putting a bad guy away was always kind of satisfying, 

There was no sign of Kowalski when he got done. He tried the bullpen, the bathroom, looked outside to make sure the GTO was still in the lot. Eventually he found Kowalski out back in the little corner where everyone went to smoke. Kowalski'd quit when he took the undercover gig, and you obviously didn't pick up a cigarette out in the wild with Fraser. As far as Ray could tell Kowalski hadn't started again when he got back to Chicago, which was surprising, but he'd still go stand in the little smoker's alley when he wanted a break. It seemed like inviting temptation to Ray- even the concrete smelled like smoke back there- but it wasn't his business.

Kowalski was just standing there, still except for the fingers of the hand he hadn't busted up drumming against the wall. Ray went and stood next to him, stepping gingerly over the litter of cigarette butts. 

"I know you can stand up for yourself," he said eventually. 

"Yeah, I know," muttered Kowalski.

"No, listen," said Ray. "I know you can stand up for yourself, and I know you could take Carlson any time you wanted to, but you don't, and there's a reason for that. I talked to Welsh because if you or I tried to handle it it would have ended up with somebody's face getting smashed in."

"Hey, I didn't hit anyone."

Ray snorted. "Yeah, other than that poor, defenseless wall."

"Walls don't file harassment charges," said Kowalski, with a little bit of a smile. 

"Well, good for you," said Ray. It came out sounding more sarcastic than he'd meant it to, so he added, "I mean it. Not sure I could've held back."

"You would've hit him?" asked Kowalski, turning to look at him for the first time. 

"I could kill him," said Ray, with a little more honesty than he was proud of. "I told you, that's why I went to Welsh. The things he says..." He stopped, took a breath. No sense in getting angry about it all over again. "I feel bad, you know," he said instead. "The way you get all their shit and I don't. I know it’s not fair."

"Don't sweat it," said Kowalski. "I don't care, I didn't ask you for anything."

That was true, though it didn't stop Ray from feeling guilty. They stood there in silence for a while. His clothes were probably going to smell like smoke by the end of this.

"I knew what I was doing," said Kowalski after a minute. "Moving in with Fraser, I mean. I didn't think it was gonna stay a secret. Made that choice with my eyes open."

"But you didn't think you'd be coming back here," said Ray. "It's different to think that everyone'll know and to have to work with them every day."

"Still," said Kowalski. "It's fine. I knew the risks."

There wasn't much to say to that, so Ray just nudged him with one shoulder.

"It's cold out here. You gonna let me get some ice for your hand or what?"

"Nah," said Kowalski, flexing his fingers experimentally. "It's good." 

It wasn't, but Kowalski came inside, so Ray counted it as a win.

 

A few weeks later, Ray drove over to Kowalski's around dinnertime one night- he was antsy after work, bored of his own apartment, and their usual had been getting earlier and earlier anyway- and found Kowalski watching hockey.

"Hey, don't worry about it," he said, taking the other end of the sofa. "We can wait 'till the game's over."

"It's barely started," said Kowalski, glancing back and forth between Ray and the TV. "I don't mind shutting it off."

"I don't mind watching," said Ray. It wasn't a lie. Sitting with Kowalski watching a game he didn't care about seemed kind of relaxing, actually. Better than pacing his apartment.

Kowalski gave him a look. "You don't even like hockey."

"Well, I got used to it. Fraser always wanted to watch."

"Right. So this is just, what, getting into character?" Kowalski was grinning, but for some reason it made the utter absurdity of the situation hit Ray.

"Jesus, Kowalski, this is fucked up," he said. Kowalski went from laughing to challenging in a second.

"Yeah? Well, what're you gonna do about it?" He glared, but Ray just raised his eyebrows. Kowalski's tough guy bluster struck him as funny sometimes, after everything he'd seen. When he was angry he could be genuinely frightening, but Ray couldn't take him seriously when he tried to posture. He would've gotten the shit kicked out of him in a hot second in Vegas.

In the face of his amusement Kowalski went from threatening to annoyed to resigned, slumping back against the couch. "What are you gonna do about it?" he repeated, but this time he said it quietly, like he really wanted to know the answer.

What Ray was going to do, apparently, was kiss him. 

Maybe Kowalski was surprised, or maybe he wasn't sure if they were actually starting for the night or not, but either way he just let Ray in, melted into him without trying to push back or take over. After a minute he tried to go back to his usual imitation of Fraser, passionate and demanding, but Ray didn't let him, because for a minute there this had been real.

When Kowalski figured it out he made a low sound into Ray's mouth and his hands clamped down hard on Ray's shoulders and he opened up and let Ray do whatever he wanted, and what Ray wanted was to never, ever stop. He was kissing _Kowalski_. Kowalski, with his stupid hair and his awful clothes and his temper, Kowalski who carried a gun and put his fist through the station wall when he was mad at Ray. He kissed slow and deep and kind of dirty, mostly following Ray's lead but using his teeth just a little bit sometimes, not letting Ray pull back to breathe.

 _I like to be held down_ , Ray remembered him saying. He couldn't do that, but he could nudge Kowalski down until he was sprawled against the armrest of the couch and climb on top of him, pinning him a little bit with his own weight. That worked, apparently. Kowalski gasped and spread his legs, tugged him down almost hard enough to make him lose his balance. Ray wobbled a little and got himself propped up on one elbow. Using both would have been easier, but he wanted a hand free to curl around the back of Kowalski's head, to keep him right there where Ray wanted him. 

It was the quietest sex they'd ever had, just the hockey game in the background and the sound of their breathing. Ray couldn't bear to stop kissing Kowalski long enough to learn if he still talked constantly when he wasn't giving instructions about Fraser. He kissed him while Kowalski went for his shirt buttons, kept kissing him when he finally got them open and ran his hands over Ray's chest like it was all he'd been wanting. Kowalski's touch was restless, down over Ray's stomach and up to scratch fingernails through his chest hair, around to his shoulder blades, back to brush over a nipple. 

Ray kissed him until he couldn't stand the scrape of their belt buckles anymore. He sacrificed the hand he had on Kowalski's face to reach down and try to get them undone, but he wasn't making much progress until Kowalski figured out what he was going for and took over. His mouth went slack under Ray's as he concentrated, but then he had both of their belts on the floor and he was working on Ray's fly, and then his own, and then he had his hand wrapped around both of their cocks and Ray had to pull away and look down.

He had kind of a thing about Kowalski's hands. It was warranted, though, Kowalski had incredible hands, long slender fingers with new pink skin across the knuckles where they were still healing from hitting the break room wall. Ray couldn't stop himself from moaning at the sight, pushing down hard, and he had to close his eyes and go back to kissing Kowalski so he didn't lose it right then. 

Kowalski was making little cut off noises in his throat now, nudging his hips up against Ray's, although they were in too precarious a position to get much of a rhythm going. Ray wasn't even really helping. He just wanted to kiss Kowalski forever, feel his jaw working and the stickiness of whatever he put in his hair, his tongue staying slow and teasing even as his hand sped up. Ray kissed him and kissed him, kept kissing him sloppy and distracted as he came, only stopped when Kowalski tore his mouth away to pant through his own orgasm. 

Kowalski kept his head tilted back afterward, gasping up at the ceiling, so Ray kissed his neck, his collarbone through the t-shirt, and then put his head down on Kowalski's heaving chest and tried to get his own breath back. It became apparent very quickly that they were going to have to move. Ray's arms were tired, and somebody's zipper was way too near his balls, and they were an incredible mess.

Getting themselves untangled was ungraceful but not terribly awkward. Kowalski had gotten the worst of it by far; Ray's open shirt had been out of the way, at least, but Kowalski'd been on the bottom and still totally clothed. Still, he said, 

"You go ahead and shower, if you want." His voice was quiet. Ray couldn't read much of his expression, just kind of neutral and tired.

"Thanks," he said, and headed for the bathroom. There was come on his pants that he wanted to try to wash off, and he also wanted a minute to get his head together.

When he came back to the living room, clean and wearing a pair of sweatpants he'd stolen from the dresser, Kowalski was fast asleep on one end of the couch. He was bare-chested; it looked like he'd used the t-shirt to wipe himself off a bit before he'd tossed it on the floor. 

After a moment's consideration Ray sat down on the other end of the couch. The hockey game was still going. He tried to figure out what had just happened, what it meant, but his thoughts kept drifting, the way they did when he was alone and not occupying his mind with anything. Being tired all the time made it hard to stay focused. He dozed a little, uneasily, dreamed about fucking Kowalski in his mansion in Vegas and waiting for Fraser to come through the door to blow everyone's cover. 

He must have really fallen asleep at some point because he woke up completely disoriented. Something had startled him, a loud noise or a touch, something he couldn't quite remember but that made him bolt upright, his heart pounding.

"You all right?" asked Kowalski sleepily.

"What do you mean, am I all right?" he demanded, just on autopilot while he tried to figure out where he was, and it came out low, dangerous, a voice he hadn't used in more than half a year.

"Vecchio?" said Kowalski carefully. 

Ray made himself breathe. He was in Kowalski's living room, because they'd both apparently fallen asleep there after having sex on the couch. The TV was still on, playing what looked like college basketball. He should know better than to sleep in unfamiliar places. He knew his own bedroom, at home and at his apartment, and he knew Kowalski's now, too. Training himself to wake up as Langoustini- to panic as Langoustini- had been hard and had been vital, though, and it was hard to untrain your instincts. He hadn't thought he'd fall asleep.

"I should go," he said, once he was sure he had control of his own voice again. Kowalski didn't say anything as Ray collected his pants from the bathroom and let himself out. Maybe he was asleep again. Ray didn't want to talk, anyway; it'd been such a good evening before he'd made the mistake of sitting down after his shower, and now he'd probably be awake all night. 

His neck hurt from sleeping sitting up. In the car on the way home he rolled his head back and forth, saying Ray, Ray, Ray to himself until it was nothing but noise.

 

It took Kowalski a long time to show up after that. Not at work- they were fine at work, good, even, if you didn't count the odd way that their eyes sometimes got caught on each other- but at Ray's apartment. Ray mostly didn't worry. It was a hell of a line they'd crossed, and anyway, it was never meant to be a permanent arrangement. Maybe Kowalski needed time to think it over, or maybe he just wasn't coming. The important thing was that their solve rate was holding steady.

He was stuck at home in the evenings in case Kowalski did come by, so he decided to use the week learning to cook fish. He'd avoided it thus far because handling raw fish kind of gave him the heebie-jeebies, not that he'd admit that to anyone except maybe under torture. Meat was fine, he was getting pretty good at cooking meat, but something about fish was just gross. 

His first two tries were basically inedible. The recipes his mother gave him assumed that you already knew how to deal with the complicated parts of a fish, the scales and the bones and the head and everything. It made him miss Fraser. Fraser would know how to do all that, and he'd be a good teacher, too, even over the phone. Ray tried calling but he couldn't get through.

It took six days for Kowalski to show up, which was at least long enough that Ray was in the middle of a fish success rather than a fish failure. It felt like a million years since the last time he'd let Kowalski into his apartment. He figured there was something big coming, that Kowalski had taken all that time to reach a decision and he was here to start a fight, or make a statement, or maybe push Ray against the wall again- he seemed to like walls. It turned out that Ray was still terrible at predicting, though, or else Kowalski was just terrible at acting like a rational human being, because all he did was hunch warily in his coat and not make eye contact.

It pissed Ray off, but in a fond kind of way, which pissed him off even more. After a minute or two of awkward small talk Ray decided that if Kowalski was just waiting to see which way he'd jump he might as well go ahead and jump. He cut Kowalski off mid-sentence, but neither of them was saying anything important. He kept the kiss slow and teasing, as far from Fraser as he could.

"Okay?" he asked when he finally pulled away to breathe.

"Okay," said Kowalski, and tried to tug him back in by the shirt.

"Watch the clothes," Ray muttered, which made Kowalski snicker until Ray shut him up. It would be nice if he could make Kowalski back down this easily at work. Welsh probably wouldn't appreciate him using his tongue to do it, though.

"Okay," he repeated. "You want some dinner or what?" He could actually see Kowalski freeze in indecision, like _food or sex? Food or sex?_ was scrolling right across his face. Ray laughed at him, couldn't help it, and clapped him on the shoulder when Kowalski narrowed his eyes. 

"Take your coat off, either way," he said, and went to deal with the kitchen.

 

They settled into something, though it was more just being used to each other's company that it was any kind of relationship. For all Ray knew Kowalski was seeing somebody else, or going to bars and picking up men who looked like Fraser once a week. They didn't talk about it. They still alternated apartments, though more often now, and earlier in the evenings. There didn't seem to be much point in killing an hour or three in his empty apartment when he was just going to end up at Kowalski's anyway.

It only caused a problem once. He was over at Kowalski's, making a mess of the kitchen trying to put a pizza together ("Come on, Vecchio, what kind of Italian chef can't make pizza?" "Wasn't pizza invented in America?" "And what, now you're not American?") The dough had risen well enough, but he was having a hell of a time getting it flat and even. When his cell phone rang he was sticky and covered in flour, so he nodded for Kowalski to answer it. It was about seven o'clock on a Thursday, which was a completely reasonable time for them to be together when they had a couple of cases going.

"Ray Vecchio's answering service," said Kowalski, apparently finding himself hilarious. Whatever response he got made the grin drop off his face in an instant. "I'm fine. Hold on," he said shortly, and held the phone on Ray's shoulder just long enough for him to tilt his head and trap it there before disappearing out of the room.

"Vecchio," he said.

"Hello, Ray," said Fraser, of course. "It seems like I've caught you at a bad time." He didn't sound upset at Kowalski's brush-off, but that didn’t mean anything. It was Fraser; half the time it was impossible to tell he was upset even face-to-face. 

"'Fraid so," said Ray, trying to nudge the phone into a better position with his shoulder. "You going into town this weekend at all?"

"I wasn't planning on it, unless there's some emergency that would require my presence."

Ray sighed. "I'll try you next week, then, okay? I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, I understand." 

No, you don't, thought Ray. Even I don't really understand what I'm doing, making pizza in Kowalski's kitchen and wishing I was anywhere else so I could talk to you. He just said his goodbyes, though, and listened to the empty space of the disconnected phone line while he washed his hands enough to hang up without making a mess.

Ray always answered his own phone after that. When he was at Kowalski's he pretended to be busy- it seemed wrong to talk to Fraser there- but at his own place he just pointed Kowalski at the television and took the conversation into his room. No way was he giving up talking to Fraser for this, whatever it was. 

 

In late November Ma informed him that he was inviting Kowalski for Christmas.

"His parents are all the way in Arizona, you know," she said, "and his grandparents have passed away. You can't let him spend Christmas with no family at all."

"All right, I'll ask if he has plans," said Ray, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his mother knew more about Kowalski's family than he did.

"Oh. Good, then," she said, taken aback. It took him a second to figure out that she'd been expecting an argument. He'd almost forgotten that the last time he and Kowalski had been in the Vecchio house together they'd gotten into a screaming fight. Ray had just come back from Florida to try and reclaim his old life; finding Kowalski in his house had been like his worst nightmare come true. The fight had started out being about Stella, but it had ranged to cover hairstyles, Fraser, their respective professional competence, and probably a couple other things he was forgetting. It ended with Ray accusing Kowalski of trying to steal his life and throwing him out of the house. In retrospect, the fact that his family hadn't said a word was probably evidence of what terrible shape he'd been in, and how obvious it was. Even Frannie, who'd never hesitated to give him a piece of her mind since she learned to talk, just avoided him for a day or two until she simmered down. It wasn't his proudest moment.

He asked Kowalski the next day. It was one of those really terrible mornings between fall and winter, windy and cold and the rain bordering on sleet but not quite managing snow. They were heading down to a crime scene, Kowalski's turn to drive, for which Ray was secretly thankful; he didn't mind cold, but he hated cold and wet, and though he'd never admit it the GTO's heat was a little better.

"Ma says you're coming to Christmas," he told Kowalski, who laughed.

"I bet she said it just like that, too."

"Pretty much, yeah. So, you have plans?"

Kowalski shot him a quick sideways glance. "Do you want me to?"

"Do what you want," said Ray.

"Then sure, tell her I'll be there," said Kowalski. He seemed pleased. After a second, though, he winced, thumping one hand on the steering wheel. "Crap. I gotta go shopping."

"Hey, no, not for us. You're a guest. No presents."

"Can't come to Christmas with no presents. How much of a delinquent do you think I am?"

"You don't even know half the people who'll be there."

"Yeah? Your family, of course, then Vecchio side is your cousin Bianca and her family, husband Marco and kids Ana and Dominic, they'll stop and pick up your uncle Lorenzo on the way. Gambardella side is your grandma Giana, your uncle Mario, even odds on whether he's bringing a new girlfriend, your uncle Vince and aunt Rita, their daughter Carla isn't coming because they go to the in-laws every other year but your cousins Mara and Emilio are coming with their spouses Sergio and Laura and kids Angelo, Nikki, Lia and Rosa and Brian and Fiona respectively. Angelo is bringing his wife Carrie, son Joseph, and probably another baby by now. How'd I do?"

"Nikki got engaged in September, her fiancé's coming," said Ray, trying to sound like he wasn't thrown by the recitation. Kowalski thought for a second.

"Chris, right?" he said. "Unless things changed really fast."

"No, you're right," said Ray. There was something eerie about Kowalski rattling off his family like that. He hadn't even remembered Chris's name before the save-the-date card arrived in the mail. 

"So I can bring presents?"

"You're still a guest," said Ray, even though it was a lie. He didn't know what Kowalski was, other than complicated, but guest was no part of it.

 

In the end Kowalski brought a bottle of wine for Ma and presents for just the kids, which was a decent compromise. He had to ask for advice, thank goodness; Ray himself couldn't keep track of who wanted what book or toy or piece of jewelry without consulting their parents for a list. Kowalski knowing what to buy would have been downright creepy.

No one other than Ray seemed to find it strange that he was there. Kowalski himself was right at home. At dinner he sat between Frannie and Maria's youngest, Isa, and chatted easily with both of them without paying Ray much attention at all. He did chime in when they got to the part of dinner where someone inevitably demanded cop stories, at least. He had a knack for editing out danger without sacrificing all the excitement. That was a nice change; Ray'd had to step on Fraser's foot a few times to keep him from helpfully correcting a completely intentional omission.

By unspoken agreement they stuck to cases they'd worked together since the summer. The stories weren't as good without Fraser the bizarre trouble magnet, but they made do, milking the crossbow sewer guy incident and a series of stuffing poisonings from Thanksgiving. People always got weird around the holidays. Ray didn't even want to think about what was going to be on his desk when he got back.

"What happened to that Mountie you used to work with?" asked his aunt Rita, just when he'd thought they were in the clear.

"Oh, he's back in Canada," said Ray, carefully not looking at Kowalski. "Listen, did I ever tell you about the time I had to arrest this guy for smuggling tropical birds?" and that was that.

The annual fight over who was doing the dishes proceeded exactly as usual. Adults chivvied reluctant children away from their presents to clear the table, his mother warded his aunt away from the sink ("You did all the cooking, let me clean." "No, no, you're my guest." "We're not guests, we're family." "The girls did most of the cooking anyway, let me at least feel useful in my own house," and on and on), and everyone generally tried to make his grandmother sit down. Ray stayed out of it, though watching Kowalski try to work his way in at the sink was funny. It wasn't that he didn’t appreciate Kowalski trying to be polite, but he was a rank amateur in this fight. No one was going to let him so much as touch a plate.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" asked Frannie behind him.

"Sure," he said. She rolled her eyes.

"Not here, idiot. Come on." He followed her upstairs, expecting some kind of present-related emergency, but she bypassed the last-minute wrapping station in his mother's room and led him into his own room instead.

"Sit," she said, pointing at the bed and shutting the door behind them. 

"Or what?"

" _Sit!_ " He sat. Living with three Vecchio women (five if you counted Maria's kids, who were growing up way too fast) you learned to pick your battles.

"This is serious," she said. "I'm going to tell you a secret, and if it doesn't stay a secret I swear I will never speak to you again, got it?"

He wanted to make a crack about how that might not be so bad, but she really did seem serious.

"I can keep it secret unless you broke a law," he said, and didn't add that even then it kind of depended on the law. That was the sort of thing you understood but didn't say out loud.

"Unless I broke a law? Is that what you think of me?"

"How should I know? You're the one who dragged me in here with some dire secret to confess." He held up his hands before she could start yelling at him. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. What law-abiding thing did you want to tell me?'

She gave him a long look before deciding he was forgiven. Forgiven enough, at least.

"Okay," she said. "So I know that despite thinking I'm a criminal, deep down you really do want to be a good brother, so I'm going to help you out here. When I tell you this you're going to want to know something. The question you're going to ask me? Don't. Don't you dare."

"You can't get mad at me for something I haven't even done yet," he protested. "How do you know I'm going to ask this question anyway?"

"You're not going to ask it, aren't you listening? You're going to think it, because I can't do anything about that, but you had better not let one word of it pass your lips."

"Frannie-"

"Instead, you're going to ask me how I’m doing. That's the right question, okay?"

"Frannie, what's wrong?" he was starting to get genuinely worried. She glared at him.

"I am helping you," she said. "The right question is 'how are you doing?' Okay?"

"Okay, I get it. What's going on?"

She crossed her arms and took a deep breath, looking nervous for the first time.

"I'm pregnant," she said.

He might still have asked the question Frannie didn't want if it had been the first thing to come to mind. Instead, for some utterly inexplicable reason, the first thing he thought was _if it's Kowalski I'll kill him_. It was such a bizarre and unexpected reaction that it stopped him short of saying anything at all, which gave his brain a chance to catch up with his mouth.

"How are you doing?" he asked carefully. Frannie smiled at him and came to sit down on the bed.

"Pretty good," she said. "If I eat a couple crackers right when I wake up I don't get too sick in the morning- I remembered Maria doing that. Mostly I'm excited. I always wanted kids, you know, even if this wasn't exactly the best timing."

"Does Ma know?"

"No. I have to tell her soon, before she figures it out on her own. That's why I wanted to tell you. I thought you could help, uh, smooth things over. You know she listens to you more than me."

"Naw, she listens to you."

"Not about this, she won't." That was definitely true. Ray wasn't sure she'd listen to anyone about this, actually, but that didn't seem worth saying.

"You want me to tell her for you?" he asked instead.

"What good would that do?"

"I don't know, you could go out a window if she starts screaming." That made her laugh a little and bump her shoulder against his.

"You mean when she starts screaming?"

"Yeah, probably. What about Maria, does she know?"

"Not yet. I meant to tell her, I just...haven't found the right time." Frannie looked a little uncomfortable. She and Maria had never really been close; they got along well enough now, but for some reason the way they'd fought growing up had left a little bit of un-closeable space between them. Ray didn't really understand, but it was the way things were.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine, really. It'll be good," she said, putting a hand on her stomach. It was the first time he'd seen that mannerism from her, though he'd seen Maria do it a thousand times. It somehow made the whole thing seem more real.

"Look, Frannie, can I just ask you one thing?"

"I told you-"

"It's not that. I mean, not really. Come on, just one question?"

She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no either, just looked at him like she was already disappointed with whatever he was about to say.

"Was it Kowalski?" he asked.

" _What_?"

"You two just seem friendly, that's all." It sounded ridiculous now that he'd said it out loud.

"What, and now any guy I'm friends with, we must be sleeping together? That's real nice."

"I never said that! Look, forget it."

"You forget it," she retorted, getting up. "He's a good guy, and he was just doing his job to keep you alive. He never wanted to steal your life. Just get over it already!"

Ray winced. Apparently she remembered that fight, the one where he'd thrown Kowalski out of the house.

"Sorry," he said. "I know, it was a stupid question. I won't ask any more."

"You better not. You're on thin ice, mister."

"Tell me when you're going to talk to Ma, I'll be there. And hey, congratulations."

"Thanks," she said. "I'll see you downstairs."

Once she was gone Ray leaned over and dropped his head into his hands. There were more people downstairs than he really wanted to deal with. Between midnight mass and his usual insomnia and the early morning race for presents he'd maybe gotten two hours of sleep, and waves of exhaustion kept swamping him between one motion and the next. It was hard to wrap his mind around the idea that his baby sister was pregnant.

He sat there for a long time. Someone put music on downstairs, something he'd never heard before even though he used to know every album in the house. He wanted the world to hold still until he got his feet under him again; it was hard to fit himself back into the old Ray Vecchio when all his reference points kept changing.

When he went down the chairs and coffee tables had been rearranged to make Kowalski a dance floor in the living room. He was handing Ray's cousin Bianca gallantly back to her seat when Ray came in, turning to his next partner who was apparently Ray's aunt Rita. Kowalski fiddled with the music for a second, producing something that made her laugh and hold her hands out to him.

Ray found a seat next to his mother on the couch, clenching his jaw. He was suddenly angry again. It seemed wrong for Kowalski to have traditions with Ray's family, new traditions that didn't have anything to do with him.

"He's a good dancer, isn't he?" said his mother.

"Yeah," said Ray shortly. You couldn't deny it. He'd known Kowalski could dance because Stella could dance, but he'd never seen it before.

"He was very good to us while you were gone," she said. Ray was about to get up and go somewhere, anywhere else, maybe take a page out of Kowalski's book and try putting his fist through a wall instead of starting a fight, when his mother leaned over and squeezed his knee.

"I'm glad you came back to me safe," she said, her voice going a little strangled at the end of the sentence; she'd always cried at the drop of a hat.

"Me too, Ma," he said. He covered her hand with his and had to clear his throat and look away for a minute, back to Kowalski and his aunt Rita moving in slow circles around the living room. 

Just like that the anger was gone, replaced by a rush of gratitude that Kowalski had kept them safe, had made himself someone they could love instead of just another cop doing his job, minding his unlucky charges. Ray sighed and rubbed his eyes; the sudden emotional about-face was disorienting. He hadn't always been fair or right, but at least he used to be confident in what he was feeling, justified or not. It had been so easy to be sure of himself once.

He made himself sit quietly and breathe, trying to regain his equilibrium. Kowalski changed songs and partners again, and again. It seemed like all of Ray's female relatives wanted a turn, right down to the kids. Kowalski honored every request, but he was obviously favoring one of the teenagers, Ana, who took dance classes and was good enough to follow his lead on some actual steps. He was teaching her something, Ray wasn't sure what. She didn't seem to mind the attention, though she was blushing about seven different shades of red. He thought she probably had a crush on Kowalski. He didn't blame her; all of Kowalski's sharp edges and attitude had disappeared, leaving nothing but smooth, serious grace. It was almost unnerving, like he'd suddenly become a stranger again.

Ray himself was a basically competent dancer, but nothing remotely approaching the skill of the two Kowalskis. When they went out Stella would always dance one or two with him and then inevitably find the one guy in the room who really knew what he was doing and leave Ray to sit and watch. She was still dancing with him, though, their eyes locked over the shoulder of whoever it was, just a stand-in body. Some nights it was like the longest foreplay in the world; Ray never even remembered what the other guys looked like. He'd known they were in trouble when Stella started looking at the people she danced with.

Kowalski didn't glance at him once, which was fine with Ray. It would have been entirely out of place for the thing they were doing, whatever it was. He almost couldn't even imagine Kowalski holding his eyes. There were too many people in the room already, too many ghosts. He thought Kowalski was probably always dancing with Stella, just a little bit, and Ray, well, Ray didn't really dance anymore at all.

Kowalski was perfectly focused on all his partners, though. Even Chris the fiancé was goaded into dancing by his bride-to-be, who was teasing him that he'd better not embarrass her at the wedding. Kowalski took Nikki's part to teach him, going backward as smoothly as he went forward. It made Ray wonder how many people in the room knew about his history with Fraser. Frannie knew, and she had a big mouth, but she was also strangely protective of Kowalski and she wasn't stupid. It occurred to him for the first time that her loyalties might be just as split as his over the Fraser-Kowalski breakup. There was no way he was talking to her about it, though, no matter how much he wanted another opinion. There were too many things he didn't want to end up saying.

When Kowalski deemed Chris good enough at whatever step he'd been teaching he pulled Nikki up to practice with him and retired to a chair across the room, propping his chin on his hand to watch. His blond head still looked out of place, no matter how at home he was with Ray's family. He'd worn a collared shirt for once. That more than anything made Ray want to go over there and kiss him, if only the rest of the room would conveniently disappear for a few minutes.

Instead he went to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine that he carried over to Kowalski's chair.

"Taking a breather?"

"Done for the night, I think." He shook his head when Ray offered him the glass. "I'm not really much of a wine person."

"Kowalski, you can bitch at me all you want when we're at work, but when you are a guest in my mother's house you take the drink and say thank you, got it?"

Kowalski gave him a look like he was crazy, but he took the glass and sipped it, so it didn't matter. Kowalski looked at him like he was crazy six times a day.

Giving him a refill was probably pushing it, so instead he waited an hour or two and then stuck his head outside to where his nephew and his cousin Emilio's son Brian were staging a war with the Nerf guns Kowalski had gotten them. Kowalski had a third one on the porch- Ray was pretty sure he'd bought them just because he wanted to play with one- and was instructing Brian's little sister Fiona in how to use it.

"Drink orders," said Ray, propping the screen door open with his shoulder and shivering. It was freezing outside. "Beer or eggnog, Kowalski?"

"Is the eggnog warm?"

"It could be."

"Eggnog, then." Kowalski had his jacket on and his hands buried in the pockets, but no hat, and even the yellowy glow of the porch light didn't hide the fact that his ears were turning bright red.

"What about you, Fiona? Want some eggnog?"

"Yes, please."

"Boys?" Ray yelled. "You want eggnog?" The shooting stopped for a moment and a brief conference was held. 

"Can we have hot chocolate?" called Brian after a moment. Ray rolled his eyes. There was probably a burner left on the stove.

"I'll check!" he called, and shut the door behind him as fast as he could.

He grabbed a hat and a jacket before he went out again, clutching two mugs precariously in one hand so he could get the door. Brian and Danny had discarded their coats in a heap he almost tripped on. He was pretty sure Maria wouldn't have allowed it, but she could enforce her own rules. Ray could remember that mysterious couple of years as a boy where he was never, ever cold. He was missing them right about now.

Kowalski was standing at the railing, watching Fiona creep up on the action and very carefully shoot her brother square in the chest. The boys didn't pay much attention, but Kowalski whooped and hollered and cheered, and Fiona turned and gave him a mittened thumbs-up before going to collect her ammunition.

"Here," he said, sliding Kowalski's cup over and wrapping his hands around Fiona's to keep them warm. Kowalski followed suit. He was wearing fingerless gloves, which were a pointless invention as far as Ray was concerned, but even so he had a hard time looking away from the way the black fabric framed Kowalski's long fingers as they curled around the mug. Kowalski caught him looking and shot him a sly sideways grin, tapping his fingertips on the porcelain. 

"Shut up and drink your eggnog," Ray told him.

"I didn't say anything," said Kowalski. He took a sip and raised his eyebrows. "Wow, that's strong."

"Family recipe," said Ray. "Hey, Fiona, you want this?" He raised the other mug, the one that wasn't spiked. Fiona came running up the porch steps to take it from him.

"What about hot chocolate?" yelled Danny.

"Your grandma says she'll make it when you come inside," Ray called back.

"Uncle Ray, I did it! Were you watching?" said Fiona excitedly, but when Ray turned she wasn't talking to him at all. Kowalski shot him a worried glance. Ray clenched his jaw and made himself shrug back.

"Yeah, I saw," said Kowalski, patting her on the back of her poofy down coat. "I'm not your Uncle Ray, though, he is."

"Oh. I thought you were, too," said Fiona, sitting down on the top step to drink her eggnog. _Too_ made something unclench in Ray's chest. He could deal with _too_.

"Nope, just me," he said. "He can be your _rompipalle_ , how about that?" He didn't think Emilio spoke much Italian to his kids; hopefully it would go over Fiona's head.

"Okay," she said, mostly paying attention to the drink.

" _Rompipalle_?" said Kowalski skeptically. Ray pulled out his best casual bluff, which was pretty damn good these days.

"It means something like honorary family, but someone older than you, maybe a friend of your parents."

Kowalski still looked suspicious, but he nodded, which was good enough for Ray. Maybe he could teach some of the other kids. Frannie would probably spoil his fun sooner or later, but it would still be worth it to see Kowalski's face when he found out.

 

Around nine-thirty Kowalski announced that he'd better get going. 

"I'll take you," said Ray. He'd been suckered into a game of Life with his nieces, which he was glad enough to escape.

"Didn't you bring your car?" his mother asked Kowalski.

"Yeah, but he can't drive," Ray cut in before he could respond. "What, you spent a decade lecturing me about drinking and driving but now it's okay for him?" Kowalski was shooting him an amused look from across the room, but Ray ignored him.

"He's fine, he hasn't had that much," said his mother.

"Well, some," admitted Kowalski. "Curse of being a cop, anyway. We're not allowed to bend to rules even a little." Ray nodded to him. They might not be able to predict each other yet, not like the perfect anticipation he'd had with Fraser, but they knew enough to follow each other's lead.

It took another twenty minutes to actually get out the door, between all the goodbyes and his mother deciding that Kowalski needed so many leftovers that Ray had to help him carry them. When the door finally closed behind them the street was blessedly quiet.

"I was wondering why you were trying to get me liquored up," said Kowalski with a grin.

"Shut up and get in," Ray told him, but good-naturedly. They were both juggling Tupperware and door handles with varying degrees of success.

"Does this cunning plan of yours also include what happens to my car?" Kowalski asked, finally getting everything settled and sliding into the front seat.

"I'll take good care of it," said Ray. "Come on, trust me a little."

The ride was quiet and cold. Ray wished he'd thought to start the car while Kowalski was saying his goodbyes; the heat was barely going to kick in by the time they got there. He kept turning it on and putting his hand in front of the vent just in case, but it was nowhere near warm yet.

It took him half the drive to work up to saying,

"Thanks for taking care of them."

"Part of the job description," said Kowalski.

"No, it wasn't." Kowalski shrugged and looked out the window. They drove in silence for a while.

"How was Christmas in Vegas?" asked Kowalski eventually. 

"Boring, mostly." The Feds had decided that it was too risky for him to spend that much time with Armando's family, so they'd given him a fake flu and a fake assassination attempt to keep him home. He'd told Nero not to bother and just stayed in bed all afternoon. "How was Chicago?"

"Oh, you know, Fraser almost got himself killed trying to take down Wilson Warfield singlehanded."

"You didn't back him up?"

"I got there," said Kowalski, in a way that made Ray suspect there was more to the story. There was always more to the story, with Fraser.

"Warfield, huh? On a whim?"

"Fraser saw him hit a waiter."

"That would do it, all right." Ray could imagine the whole thing, with his memory providing visuals of the way he'd found Fraser on the floor where Frankie Zuko's goons had dropped him. He hoped Kowalski had gotten there faster than he had.

It occurred to him as he parked that this was the most normal conversation they'd had about Fraser since the stakeout, the only one where Kowalski had voluntarily brought him up. It was definitely something about cars.

He killed the engine and said, "Wait a second," when Kowalski moved to get out. That got him a smirk, but whatever, he wasn't really trying for subtlety. 

"What, you wanted me to just drop you off?"

"No, not really," said Kowalski, so Ray undid his seatbelt and leaned over and kissed him. That was simple, unlike every other thing that had happened that day. Kowalski moaned and grabbed at his shoulders, like maybe he'd been thinking about it the whole time he was mostly ignoring Ray at the house, or maybe he just did zero to sixty in a second, in true Kowalski fashion. Ray hadn't really been thinking about doing anything other than kissing him, but now he was. Too bad it was terrible timing.

He was a lot of years and two bullet wounds past being able to twist around like that for long, but when he pulled back Kowalski just followed him, shifting over to his knees in some way that probably would have made Ray fall over. He managed it, though, hanging onto the seat for balance and bending his head to lick up Ray's neck. The sound Ray made was a lot closer to a whine than he would have liked. He got under Kowalski's jacket but was defeated by the fact that he had his damn shirt tucked in, which was probably karmic retribution or something, so he settled for curving his hands around Kowalski's hipbones. He wanted to pull him closer, but he was too aware of how close they were to tumbling into either the wheel or the gearshift.

"You wanna come up?" asked Kowalski.

What Ray wanted, actually, was to jerk him off right there in the front seat. Kowalski wouldn't do anything in the GTO because he said it was Stella's- Ray had a feeling he'd lost his virginity in that car, but he sure as hell wasn't asking- but maybe he wouldn't mind the Riv.

"I have to get home," he made himself say.

"You sure?"

"You want Frannie wondering why I took so long to drop you off?" Kowalski made a face.

"Good point." He kissed Ray one more time and clambered off him, swearing when he smacked one knee into the dashboard. The Riv didn't seem all that warm, but when he opened the door the rush of outside air was downright freezing.

"Hey, give me your keys," said Ray while Kowalski retrieved his food from the back seat. "I'll drive your car over tomorrow and take the El back. I’m sure I'll need a break from my family at some point."

"The El runs slow sometimes," said Kowalski, tossing his keys into the passenger seat. "You might be late getting back to your house."

"Huh, you think?"

"Yeah, I think." Food carefully stacked in his arms, Kowalski bumped the door shut with his hip and then yelled, "And not a scratch on her, Vecchio!"

Ray just rolled his eyes and pulled away.

 

Back at home the evening was winding down. Almost everyone who wasn't staying the night had left, and some of the kids were already in bed. His grandmother was snoring in the easy chair and his uncle Vince on the sofa, Kowalski's dance partner Ana trying to whisper to her boyfriend on the hallway phone, Nikki and Chris talking in the kitchen. He smiled at them when he stopped in to get himself some eggnog. They were sweet together, but they seemed wildly, impossibly young to be engaged, even though he knew they were older than he and Angie had been.

Frannie was sitting on the opposite end of the sofa as their sleeping uncle, watching his cousin Mara read someone's battered copy of Make Way for Ducklings to two pajama-clad children who were trying and failing to stay awake. Ray sat down next to her with a sigh.

"Cute, aren't they?" she asked. She had her hand resting on her stomach again.

"When they're quiet, at least." Ray nudged her with his shoulder. "Hey. You'll be great," he said quietly. 

"You think so?"

"I know so." 

"I guess we'll see," she said, and leaned over to get her own mostly-empty glass from the floor and clink it against his.

"Merry Christmas. I'm glad you're home."

"Yeah," he said, "so am I."

 

Four days later, he was at Kowalski's apartment after work when the phone rang.

"You gonna get that?" he asked, pausing halfway through unbuttoning his shirt.

"Hell no," said Kowalski. He was already down to his boxers, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Hurry up, would you? I'm cold."

"You're such a romantic," said Ray. He took extra time draping his shirt over the back of the chair on purpose.

"Vecchio!"

"Don't make me give you the ironing speech again." In the living room Kowalski's voice announced that he wasn't home and asked the caller to leave a message.

"Nobody _makes_ you give the ironing speech." Kowalski came over and started undoing his belt, which was nice because it left his hands free for more interesting things, like distracting him.

The answering machine clicked and Fraser said,

"Hello, Ray."

Kowalski froze.

"I wanted to call and wish you a merry Christmas," Fraser went on. "I'm sorry it's a few days late. We've been snowed in for nearly a week, I'm afraid, and this is the first chance I've gotten to come into town. I'd planned to attend a small gathering hosted by the Holmans, but to be honest a quiet Christmas with Diefenbaker was quite restful. I did stop by the Holmans' when I got into town today and they asked that I pass along their best wishes to you.

The message went on and on. There was a litany of people who had asked after Kowalski, more local news than seemed possible for one tiny town. Some of it went back months, which made Ray wonder if this was the first time Fraser had called since the two of them split up. Kowalski was looking down so Ray couldn't see his face, but the line of his shoulders and neck had gone tense. No, Ray thought, Fraser would have called a lot for the first few weeks, until he got the message that Kowalski wasn't speaking to him.

Fraser wound down eventually. "I hope you're well, and please pass season's greetings along to everyone at the station. I'll-" he faltered. _Talk to you soon_ was hanging in the air but Fraser replaced it with ,"hope to hear from you soon. I know I can be difficult to reach, but you can always call the detachment, or, well. You know the address, of course, should you ever wish to write. Merry Christmas, Ray."

The answering machine clicked again and shut off. Ray didn't know what to expect- another confession, getting sent home, there was no telling- but Kowalski just kissed him hard and said,

"So are you gonna fuck me or what?"

When Ray got home that night there was an almost identical message on his machine, except the small town news bulletin was replaced by messages for his family and Fraser said "I'll talk to you soon" with a smile in his voice. It was unsettling, like he and Kowalski were somehow still living alternate versions of one life, no matter how hard they tried to pull apart.

 

Frannie broke the news just before New Years, addressing it to everyone in the kitchen: Ma at the table with her, Maria doing dishes, Ray making coffee, Isa making a serious and somewhat successful effort to wipe down the table, which was her particular chore. The older kids had loaded the dishwasher and disappeared out to the living room, where Tony had turned on the TV. 

Ray jumped on the announcement with excitement and congratulations, hoping to head off an argument, and Isa chimed in with how much she wanted a baby cousin. It was a nice touch; he wondered if Frannie was bribing her with ice cream or something, but maybe she was just that enthusiastic.

For a minute he thought they were going to get away with it. When he'd almost run out of happy baby chatter he snuck a glance over at the table, though, and saw his mother sitting there pale with a hand over her mouth. That wasn't a good sign.

" _Piccola_ ," she said eventually, shaking her head. "Why are you always trying so hard to ruin yourself?"

" _Ruin_ myself?" repeated Frannie.

"You're such a pretty girl. You could have been married, had a family, but instead you get a divorce at twenty-two and you have to wear little scraps of clothing and go out with all these men, I don't know why."

"What do you want me to do, lock myself in my room and cry because I don't have a husband?"

"You're a grown woman, Francesca, you should act like it. I don't understand why you can't be more like Maria. I raised you just the same."

"Leave me out of it, Ma," said Maria, not turning from the sink.

"Yeah, what does Maria have that I'd want? A deadbeat husband who can't even support their kids? No thanks."

"He's trying," snapped Maria.

"At least the children have a father," said Ma. "What about this man, is he going to marry you?"

"What man?"

"The father." Ma gestured at Frannie's belly. She put her arm over it defensively.

"The baby doesn't have a father."

"Nonsense, all babies have fathers."

"Not this one. It's all mine. It was impractical conception."

"Immaculate," Ray murmured. "It's immaculate conception, Frannie."

"Sure, whatever. That."

"Is that what you're going to tell that poor child? What about when it gets older and everyone in the neighborhood is talking about it, and calling names in the schoolyard?" 

Ray had been thinking the same thing, actually, but he wasn't about to say it aloud. Frannie could handle it however she wanted to. If things got too out of hand Ray could always have a quiet word or two with whoever it was without her knowledge; the neighborhood might not know about Vegas, but they knew what had happened to the last guy to disrespect his little sister. Not that he wanted to do it again, but you could trade on having done something like that for a long time without repeating it.

There was part of him whispering that he'd do it again if he had to, take off his badge first this time, do whatever was necessary. It was a wild overreaction and he knew it- people might talk about Frannie behind her back, but it wasn't like she'd be in any actual danger- and worse than that he couldn't even blame it on having Armando in his head for so long. The cold surety that he could take care of things, that was a Langoustini relic for sure, but the rest of it, the urge to protective violence, that could just as easily be his. The whole thing unnerved him. He got down some mugs and poured coffee, just to have something to do with his hands, not because anyone was going to stop mid-argument to drink it.

"Maybe I have a little more faith in people than you do," Frannie was saying. "Though I guess I’m wrong, if even my own mother's going to talk about me like that."

"I'm only saying you should think things through a little more. You were married less than a year! That's not enough time to know anything. You could have tried a little harder to work it out, for the baby's sake if not for yours, not to let it grow up without a father."

"So I should stay with a man who'll come home drunk and beat me and my kids for what, propriety? Because that's better than letting the neighbors talk, god forbid, better to let your kids walk around black and blue than risk someone they don't even know talking about them. And you know what? They talk anyway, behind your back, about how sad it is for those kids and how you're too much of a damn coward to leave him."

The kitchen went utterly silent. Ray couldn't see Frannie's expression from where he was standing but she must have known she'd gone too far. Ma was just sitting there, blank-faced, like she didn't know how to react. The sound of the TV drifted in from the other room. 

"How long until we can play with the baby?" asked Isa, breaking the tension, and wow, Ray was going to double whatever Frannie was giving her. Everyone started like they'd forgotten she was in the room. He really hoped she was too young to understand what was going on.

Frannie turned to explain to her that it actually would be a long time before the baby was even born, and then a long time after that before it could do much playing. Partway through her explanation Ma got stiffly up from the table and walked out of the room without saying a word. Frannie's back was to her and she didn't turn around, but Ray could see her shoulders tighten at the sound.

"Good job clearing the table," said Maria when Frannie was done. "Now go see what your father's up to." They all watched Isa scamper out of the room, and then turned and looked at each other.

"Go apologize, Frannie," said Maria, in much the same tone. "I think she's upstairs."

"What for? I meant it."

"So don't say you didn't mean it, just say you're sorry," Ray told her. "You know that was over the line."

"No way," said Frannie. "That's stupid. I don't see why we never talk about it."

Ray didn't have a response to that. They didn't talk about it because it wasn't the kind of thing you talked about, that was all. It was long behind them now, anyway, and better in the past.

"It's her house," put in Maria. "You could at least apologize for being rude." 

It wasn't going to work. Frannie could out-stubborn any of them. She still looked angry, too, though now it seemed defensive, like she was holding onto it because she knew she didn't want to think about what she'd said with a clear head.

"I don't care if it's her house," she said, pushing her chair back with a clatter and standing up. "If she doesn't want us here I'll leave. I make my own salary, I can support us. I'm not raising my baby anywhere it isn't wanted." She stormed out of the room.

" _Merda_ ," said Ray. Langoustini had cursed a lot, more than Ray, and he was having a hard time shaking the habit. Maria didn't want it around the kids, though, so he'd taken to shifting all his swearing into Italian. They were going to figure it out sooner or later, but for now it seemed to be going over their heads, and at least Maria had stopped glaring at him.

"That could have gone better," he said.

"I wouldn't expect it to," said Maria. She dried her hands and folded the dishtowel over the handle of the oven. "Why do you think she didn't leave?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know," said Ray. He hadn't ever thought about it, really. "Where would she have gone with three kids and no income? Back to Italy?"

"I guess not." She reached around him for two cups of coffee. "I'll bring Tony his. I'd better check on Isa, too, make sure she doesn't think we're all about to kill each other."

"Oh, we aren't?" said Ray, feigning surprise. Maria smiled and bumped him with her shoulder as she went out.

Ray sighed, turning his own cup in his hands. There wasn't any point trying to talk sense into Frannie before she'd cooled down a bit, and he didn't know what on earth he'd say to his mother. Everything Frannie'd said had been true, even if she should have kept her mouth shut about it.

He hoped they'd be able to patch things up. Frannie moving out of the house almost definitely meant Frannie moving in with him, at least in the short term. He'd let her, obviously, she was his sister, but there was almost nothing he wanted less. It would mean losing the only place he could let down his guard. At work and at home everyone wanted to see the old Ray Vecchio, the guy he'd been when he left, to think that Vegas hadn't changed anything at all. Ray was sick of pretending to be someone else, even if that person was himself. His apartment was the only place he didn't have to. No one was ever there except Kowalski, and Kowalski already knew that he didn't sleep and sometimes startled awake with Langoustini in his head and that he'd lost it in a library basement in September. There was no point putting on an act for him.

Ray wouldn't have minded the peace of his apartment right then, actually, but he'd promised to help, and that probably included being there to smooth things over if either of them came back downstairs. Maybe the kids would play with him for a while. Amanda had picked up rummy five hundred at school and gotten her brother into it; Isa was too young to really understand the game but sometimes she'd sit on Ray's lap and hold his cards for him, solemnly picking up and putting down whichever ones he pointed out. 

The other adults in the house were sick of the game by now, but it was still one of Ray's favorite things, this stupid luck game with no skill and no stakes and no consequences if you didn't count when he had to scold the winner for picking on their sibling too much. Once Isa's too-small hands had dropped every single one of his cards face-up on the floor and nothing had happened at all. He loved it.

He picked up his coffee and headed for the living room. He owed Frannie a couple hours, at least. If Ma hadn't come down by the time the kids were put to bed, maybe he'd go back to his place and try again tomorrow. Something told him this wasn't going to be resolved quickly, anyway.

 

In the end Frannie didn't move out, but it was a close thing, and by the time all the drama had died down it was suddenly, with no warning at all, the middle of January.

The anniversary of Louis Gardino's death came out on a Monday. Elaine stopped by the precinct on her lunch break and Welsh came out of his office and they sat around with a couple of the other oldtimers telling stories, just good memories, nothing about Ray or Zuko or the manner of Gardino's death. The whole station was quiet all day, a little extra respectful, which was nice. You didn't last long at the 2-7 if you didn't know how to read Welsh's moods.

That night Ray went down to the One Liner. He would've sat in the back if there was a back to sit in, but there was barely anyone in the room, just a couple friends of the college kids who were the less-than-mediocre warmup act. He wasn't really paying attention, anyway. He just waited until the show was over and the place cleared out, and then he sat down next to Jack Huey and the two of them proceeded to get steadily, wordlessly drunk. A lot of people were seeing Gardino when they closed their eyes today, but he and Huey were probably the only ones still seeing flames. That called for more than just telling stories.

When he woke up later he was in his apartment in all his clothes, but he couldn't remember getting there. He'd called a cab, but there was nothing in his memory between that and waking up in his own bed. He hadn't drunk all that much, but he'd forgotten that it had been ten months since he'd last had any alcohol, god, he'd been out of Vegas as long as he'd ever been there. It apparently didn't take much to get him blackout drunk now.

He made it to the bathroom in time to puke all of it up, which seemed to take forever and left him weak and shaky. He wasn't sure he was done, so he drank a couple sips of water from the tap and just sat on the bathroom floor to wait. The tile was freezing. He was probably still a little drunk; he dozed fitfully, seeing the Riv blaze up in something that wasn't quite a dream- he could still feel his waking body stiff and shivering on the floor- but wasn't conscious enough to be called a thought, either. At some point he threw up again, and at another he pulled a towel down to wrap around his shoulders. He hadn't looked at the clock when he'd gotten up to bolt for the bathroom, and it was hard to judge the passage of time.

His alarm sounding from the bedroom startled him out of something like sleep. He stood in the shower until the water ran cold and then dragged himself to work, hiding behind a cup of coffee and a stack of files. Welsh didn't comment, for once, maybe because he was moving a little slowly himself. Kowalski took one look at him and declared that he was going out to follow up a lead. By the time he got back that afternoon Ray was feeling a little more human, though the human he felt like was still a tired and headachey one.

That was the end of it for everyone else, for Welsh and Elaine and Huey, but not for Ray. That night he lay in bed remembering stupid things, like the clock on Irene's bedside table counting down hours until he had to leave, the time he'd wanted to do the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet for an English presentation but she wouldn't let him in case it made someone suspicious. She had always, always been smarter than him. He'd liked that, liked that he could be the romantic one, could count on her to be careful and logical and look out for them both. If it had all been up to Ray they would have gotten caught within the month. That would have been better; they could have taken the beatings that surely would have followed and forgotten about each other, and then maybe Irene would be alive.

He didn't sleep at all that night.

Wednesday was hard, but he'd managed two days on next to no sleep before. He drank more coffee, made himself eat even though the idea of food turned his stomach, pretended that he wasn't losing focus on the paperwork he was trying to read. He fell asleep for a little on the couch after work, just out of sheer exhaustion, and startled awake so hard when the phone rang that his heart was still pounding by the time he got up and across the room to answer it.

It was Fraser. He asked how Ray was doing, which he did every time they talked, but his tone was anything but conversational today.

"Not so good," said Ray. "Really not so good, this week. How are you?"

"Not so good either. I keep thinking…well. I'm sorry I wasn't faster."

It wasn't just he and Huey who were still seeing fire, Ray realized. He didn't know how he'd forgotten.

"It wasn't your fault," he said.

"Of course it wasn't. A bomb is no one's fault but the man who planted it. I could have prevented it, though."

"Fraser-"

"I could have. I could have been faster, or called louder."

"Yeah, or I could have noticed anything at all. I could've not made myself the guy you go for when you want to frame Frank Zuko because everyone knew I wouldn't investigate too hard. We all could've a million things."

"I suppose so." Fraser sighed. "Have you had any contact with the Zukos?"

"Not since. She's buried nearby, you know. I thought about going by the grave this week but I'm too afraid I'll run into her kids."

"I didn't realize she had children," said Fraser, managing not to sound surprised except for the tiny pause before his words.

"Two, yeah. Her ex has custody now." That made Ray angry- if she'd thought the guy wasn't good for them, why didn't Frankie or his mother step up and take them- but he hated himself for thinking it every time. He'd gotten their mother killed; the last thing he deserved was an opinion on what happened to them afterward. He didn't even know their names.

"I didn't realize," said Fraser again. 

"I promised her," said Ray. "Did I ever tell you that? She hated it, everything her father did, and Frankie, too. That's why she married that creep, I think, just to get out, and I promised her that it would stop, that I would stop. She was dying and I promised her that, and then I turned around and went to Vegas."

"That was different," protested Fraser. "What you did in Las Vegas was to help people, to stop just this kind of thing, even if you had to do some harm in the short term."

Some harm in the short term, right.

"How many kids' parents do you think I killed, Fraser? Do you think it matters to them that it was in service of the greater good? That maybe Armando Langoustini would have done the same thing if he was alive? That's what I told her I'd stop, all the people who get caught in the goddamn crossfire."

"There was never any way that no one would be hurt. It was a job that the FBI thought had to be done, and they determined that the gains outweighed the losses. If it wasn't you it would have been-"

"Langoustini liked car bombs, did you know that?" said Ray, talking right over him. "He liked the way they clean up their own evidence if you set them right. I didn't want to do one but the Feds insisted, said I had to keep up all of his habits, couldn't jeopardize the cover. So I picked this guy, a real jerk, his wife kept trying to get out but he was holding the kids over her and wouldn't let her go. I figured at least it would do someone some good, right? Get them all free. Except the day I pick his son gets sent home from school with pinkeye. He couldn't leave him alone at home so he took him on all his errands. You see where this is going?"

"Yes," said Fraser quietly. 

"The kid was seven years old. You tell me how that's serving the greater good." 

Not much had fazed him by then, but when he'd heard the story Ray'd had to pretend he'd eaten something bad so he could hide in the bathroom and pull himself together. He'd had half an hour to get to a business meeting with two casino owners. The only way there ever was out of that assignment was through. Through, or dead.

"I'm sorry, Ray," said Fraser. 

He felt abruptly sick. He hadn't ever wanted Fraser to know about that. 

"Look, I have to go, I'll call you later," he said, and hung up on Fraser's protest.

He didn't sleep that night either. 

That was too many nights, as it turned out. On Thursday he was a mess. He didn't have to be told he looked terrible, though people did tell him; he was covered in a cold sweat and he kept trembling at intervals he couldn't control, sometimes for an hour or two before it stopped. He only processed about a third of what Kowalski was saying to him. By the end of the day he didn't even know what case they were working on.

That night he made himself eat a couple of mouthfuls of pasta, even though he hadn't been hungry in what felt like days, and sat and stared at the phone. He was going to have to call in sick tomorrow. There was no way he could do his job like this, and he didn't need to get anybody else shot on his account. Tomorrow was the day she'd died, though, and he wasn't sure he could handle it sitting alone in his apartment.

Kowalski showed up around eight, even though it wasn't his turn to come over. He tossed his jacket over a chair and rummaged around in the kitchen for a minute before coming to sit next to Ray on the couch, propping his elbows on his knees and looking straight ahead.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked.

"I thought you knew everything about me."

"That's not what I asked."

Ray really, desperately didn't want to talk about it. What he wanted was to stop thinking about it, about Gardino and Irene and Vegas and all of it, everything, long enough to go to sleep. 

"You want to fuck me?" he asked, and thank god it was Kowalski, who wouldn't say a word about that being an unhealthy way of coping, didn't try to tell him it wouldn't solve anything. He just raised his eyebrows a little and said,

"Yeah, sure. Now?"

"You got somewhere else to be?"

His hands were shaky so he let Kowalski get his buttons, and then it was easy to let him get the rest of the clothes, too, and to nudge Ray down on his back on the bed.

"You done this before?" Kowalski asked.

"Yeah." It seemed important to lie for some reason, but he didn't bother to make it sound convincing. The way he tensed up at the first press of Kowalski's finger probably gave him away, anyway.

"Hey, relax," said Kowalski. "No rush."

Ray tried. He could manage it if Kowalski kept still, but as soon as he moved Ray tensed up again involuntarily. He would have thought he was too exhausted for an adrenaline rush but somehow everything had come into sharp focus, every breath and heartbeat and touch all at once.

"Did I say relax? I could have sworn I said relax," said Kowalski. He was rubbing his other hand soothingly up and down Ray's leg, which made him smile a little. Kowalski was the only person he knew who could pull off gentle bitching.

He tried pushing himself up on his elbows to look; god knew he couldn't get enough of seeing Kowalski's hands on him most of the time. Like this, though, it just made him even more aware of how ridiculous he looked. He lay back down and stared at the too-familiar ceiling instead.

That meant, of course, that he could feel Kowalski shifting around, but he wasn't expecting Kowalski's mouth on his cock. Ray scrambled back to his elbows to watch. He wasn't hard, but that just meant Kowalski could fit all of him in his mouth, which was insanely, stupidly hot and definitely not going to last long. Kowalski flicked a glance up at him, managing to look smug, and Ray groaned. It was a hell of a distraction.

It was one of Kowalski's take-no-prisoners blowjobs, no teasing or finesse, nothing but fast and wet and hot. Ray was gasping for air in a minute flat. He got a hand down to brush along Kowalski's jawline, tangle his fingers gently in the stupid spikes of his hair, just to feel. Kowalski flashed blue eyes at him again and hummed his approval, which made Ray bite back a curse.

Kowalski's mouth on him changed things. He didn't quite forgot what else was going on, but he wasn't concentrating on it, either. Now that his body was convinced that good things were happening, the stretch of Kowalski's fingers had gone from intrusive to...not exactly pleasurable, but intense, ratcheting up every other sensation. It was almost too much. He found himself squirming, not trying to accomplish anything in particular, but just because he couldn't hold still. He was distracted enough that his orgasm snuck up on him. At the last minute he tugged on Kowalski's shoulder and mumbled,

"Wait, stop, I'm going to- Kowalski!" because Kowalski's only response was to suck harder, somehow sinking down another half-inch that Ray wouldn't have thought was possible. He had no hope of holding back, just clenched his fists in the sheets so he wouldn't pull Kowalski's hair and rode it out, gasping. 

"Hey," he said when he could form words again. It came out sounding more weak than accusing. Kowalski gave him one last lick, making him shudder, and grinned.

"Hey what?" he said. "You're relaxed now, right? Come on, roll over."

Ray complied, unable to stop himself from making an unhappy noise at the loss of Kowalski's fingers. He'd gotten used to them while he wasn't paying attention and now he felt strange, open and empty and exposed.

"It's okay," said Kowalski, rubbing a hand over the small of his back. "I got it, just give me one minute. Here, take a pillow, it'll make it easier."

Between the exhaustion and the orgasm he almost couldn't coordinate his limbs, but Ray eventually managed to get one of the pillows tucked under his hips, moving slowly. Kowalski must have been dealing with the condom and lube in the meantime, because as soon as Ray got settled he was there, pressing warmly along Ray's back.

"You good?" he asked.

"Yeah, go ahead," said Ray. There was a little frission of fear in his mind again, but his body was too tired to tense up. Kowalski's cock was entirely different from his fingers. He was going slow, breathing harshly as he kept himself to the tiniest increments possible, but it was still overwhelming. Ray closed his eyes and buried his face in his arms and just felt it. He was so caught up in the sensation, in being opened and pinned and filled like nothing he'd ever experienced, that it took him a long time to notice when Kowalski stopped, to realize that he must be waiting for Ray's cue.

"Okay," he said, "go on."

Kowalski leaned down to press a quick kiss to his shoulder blade, and started moving. He kept himself contained, just slowly rocking in and out, but it was still enough to drag Ray's breath out of him every time he pulled back. 

"There you go," murmured Kowalski. "There you go, you're good. You feel amazing, Vecchio, I can't believe- god, I wanted to do this forever, for months, fuck, look at you." 

Ray managed to process that enough to be flattered, and a little surprised; he'd had no idea that Kowalski wanted to fuck him. He'd certainly never asked. That was worth thinking about later, maybe, when he could actually focus. For now something had finally clicked, tipped quietly over the edge from intense to intense and _good_ , and he sighed and tried pushing back into Kowalski's rhythm.

"There you go," said Kowalski again, like he'd been waiting, and levered himself up to adjust the angle. It only took him two tries- luck or experience, Ray wasn't sure- to find what he was looking for, but then he had it perfectly. Ray gasped and shook, started to curse but he was so used to censoring himself that it came out,

" _Cazzo._ "

"Jesus, Vecchio," Kowalski ground out. His rhythm faltered and he thrust in hard, fingers tight on Ray's hips. He got himself back under control quickly, but Ray could take a hint. Or he could try, at least; he switched to Italian, but it didn't last long before he was past forming words at all. 

Kowalski was still going slow, but less careful now, so Ray could feel the strength behind it, the way he was holding himself back. He still had the angle down exactly. Every time he thrust in Ray could feel it in every part of his body, a wave of pleasure all the way out to the soles of his feet. There was no way he was getting hard again, but he still found himself pushing back almost greedily, moving with Kowalski, trying to get him deeper.

He'd never had sex where at least some part of his mind wasn't focused on coming before. He'd gotten other people off after his own orgasm, sure, but that was different, it was distanced, just a hand or a mouth, not like this. It was an entirely foreign experience. It felt like Kowalski had found the most sensitive part of his body, but there was no focus to the pleasure, no place for it to go, so it just built and built into a full-body daze. 

If he'd had the presence of mind to think about it he would have been impressed with Kowalski's stamina. As it was, it just felt like it went on forever, until he lost track of everything except the feeling of Kowalski's body over him, the pillow under his cheek, the way his whole body shivered a little with each wave of sensation. Kowalski was still talking, but Ray was losing most of the words under the breathy sounds he couldn't help making. 

He would have believed that it was hours, or maybe days, before Kowalski's control started slipping. The gentleness disappeared, his thrusts speeding up and losing the careful rhythm he'd kept for so long. His forehead came down on Ray's back.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Sorry, Vecchio, fuck, I have to-"

" _Va bene_ ," Ray managed, and Kowalski groaned and shuddered to stillness inside him, gasping,

"Fuck, that's not _fair_."

Ray huffed something that didn't have enough energy behind it to quite be a laugh, and then grunted when Kowalski collapsed on top of him. Even half-crushed he was almost asleep by the time Kowalski recovered himself enough to move, though he twitched and shivered a little when Kowalski pulled out. 

He just managed to get the pillow out from under himself, but that was all he could do in the way of cleanup. Kowalski was probably taking care of it; Ray felt him get off the bed and walk around a little bit, heard him running water in the bathroom before he came back. Then there was Kowalski's weight on the bed again, and the blankets were pulled up to his shoulders. He couldn't get his eyes open. The last thing he was aware of was Kowalski sneaking one leg over the invisible middle line to press warm against his shin, and then, finally, he was asleep.

 

February was slow, for some reason. They spent three days reading through a dead suspect's journals looking for clues to his smuggling operation. The guy could have given Fraser's dad lessons. It was a relief when the phone rang.

"Vecchio," he said, and the last person he expected replied,

"Hi, Ray. It's Stella."

He kept himself from repeating her name just in time; Kowalski was sitting just a couple desks away.

"Hi," he said instead, off balance.

"Sorry to call you at work," she said. "The only other current number I have for you is your house, and, well…"

"Yeah, work is fine. Don't worry about it." He didn't even want to imagine Stella trying to leave a message for him through his mother. "So, what's going on? It's been a while."

She didn't apologize for that, and neither did he. Kowalski was watching him from across the room, either bored enough of the journals that he'd welcome any distraction, or noticing that it definitely wasn't a police call. Maybe both.

"It has," she said. "How's Chicago?"

"Good. How's Florida?" Kowalski's head came up. Ray gave him a bland look. He knew a lot of people in Florida who might be calling him.

"About the same as you left it. I definitely didn't miss the winter I missed, if you know what I mean."

"I sure do. We've still got snow on the ground."

"Ah, Chicago."

"Same as ever."

"That's why I called, actually. I'm going to be in town in a couple weeks, I thought maybe we could get coffee or something. I'm flying in for Kimmy's bridal shower."

Ray wracked his brain.

"Remind me who Kimmy is again?" That got Kowalski out of his seat.

"My youngest cousin," said Stella. Kowalski leaned over his desk.

"Is that Stella?" he asked. Ray tucked the phone under his chin and told him,

"None of your business."

"It is, isn't it. Give me the phone," he demanded, at the exact same time that Stella said,

"Don't give him the phone," in his ear. Ray resisted the urge to bang his head on the desk.

"Go away, Kowalski," he said instead, and easily won the ensuing glaring contest. Kowalski had the patience of a four-year-old, and Ray had ten months of Langoustini under his belt.

"I wanted to ask you a favor, too," said Stella. "I heard that you're partnering with Ray- Ray Kowalski now." Right, she was still friends with Kowalski's mom.

"Yeah," he said warily. He really hoped she wasn't going to ask him to keep her visit a secret. He didn't even know where his loyalties would lie on that one.

"Do you know if he's seeing anyone?"

"No, I don't think so," he said calmly.

"Crap." That made Ray smile. Stella didn't swear much- she said it was a bad habit for the courtroom- but she could put more vehemence into _crap_ than anyone he knew. 

"Why?"

"I'd like to see him too, but I was hoping he'd be with somebody by now. Maybe introduce me."

"That's a little strange."

"I know. I just want to have dinner with him without it being anything more than it is, you know? But if he's going to be the way he was after the divorce there's no point."

"It's been a long time," he pointed out.

"Like that makes a difference to Ray. Look, will you come? As a buffer?"

"Seriously?"

"I know, it's weird. You two must at least be friendly, though, right? If you've been partners all this time?"

"We've mostly stopped trying to kill each other, yeah." Across the room Kowalski grinned at him, not even pretending he wasn't listening in.

"Are you sure you've thought this through?" Ray asked.

"If you can be civil to each other at work I don't see why you can't do it at dinner."

"Well, you aren't at work, for one."

"And if you even think about fighting over me I will kick both your heads in, so I'm sure that won't be a problem." It was weird, the way he couldn't tell anymore whether Stella sounded like Kowalski or Kowalski sounded like Stella. He'd known Stella first, but by now he'd known Kowalski longest.

"It's fine if you don't want to, though," she continued. "We can just do coffee. I don't want to make you do anything uncomfortable."

"No, it's fine," said Ray. "If you're sure. I'll call you back about the details after work, okay?"

"Sure, of course. Sorry to tie up your phone line."

"Don't be. It's good to hear your voice."

"Yours too," she said. "I'll talk to you later."

Ray hung up and put his face in his hands.

"What?" said Kowalski. "What is it?"

"She wants the two of us to go out to dinner with her in March."

"Together?"

"Uh-huh." Kowalski stared at him.

"She thinks that's a good idea?"

"That sounds promising," said Welsh, making Ray jump. He missed his back corner desk. "Who thinks what is a good idea, Vecchio?"

"Uh." He looked down at the open journal in front of him. "The suspect's girlfriend thinks giving the cat grain-free food is a good idea?"

"That sounds like a real breakthrough." Kowalski was laughing at him openly behind Welsh's back.

"It pays to be thorough?" Ray tried. Welsh gave him a look.

"Do I need to remind you of that word we so generously let you put before your name?"

"No, sir. Sorry. I'll just, uh, detect some more, then?"

"You do that," said Welsh, and shut his office door on Ray's wince.

 

Right at the end of the month they finally tracked down the dead smuggler's crew and managed to arrest the lot of them, though not without getting stuck in a nasty firefight for a few minutes that felt like an eternity. In the station parking lot afterward they had their first fight about Fraser, Kowalski spitting mad and Ray nursing a bullet graze on one arm and wanting nothing more than to go home.

“Do I look like Fraser to you?” Kowalski demanded, slamming the door of the Riv in a way Ray really didn’t appreciate. He took his time getting out, which seemed to piss Kowalski off even more. “No, really, tell me,” he said, gesturing up and down his body. “Red coat? Bit stupid hat? Oozing politeness?”

Ray snorted. You could use a lot of adjectives to describe Kowalski, but polite wasn’t likely to figure in the top, oh, thousand.

“I’m serious,” said Kowalski, moving in close so he could lower his voice. “Maybe you got confused with all that _Benny, Benny_ shit in bed, but I am not him.”

“What are you talking about?” he said. Ray was almost offended; it had been months since they’d called anything but the right names, and the whole thing had been Kowalski’s idea in the first place, anyway.

“How many bullets have you taken for Fraser, huh?” There was no way Kowalski didn’t know the answer to that, but he glared until Ray said,

“Two.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. You wanna sacrifice yourself for him, that’s your business, but don’t you dare do it for me. I never asked for that. I don’t want it.”

“So what, I should just let you get shot?”

“I was wearing a vest!”

“That would have done a lot to stop you getting your head blown off, yeah.”

“What do you want me to do, wear a crash helmet?”

“I want you to wear your goddamn glasses!” Ray yelled. They were attracting attention now, but he didn’t care. He was exhausted and his arm hurt and he just wanted to go make his report and go home. Kowalski started to say something but Ray talked right over him.

“Or get contacts, one or the other, and I do not give a damn how much they irritate your eyes, you hear me? I don’t _care_. If you could see the guy who was shooting at you maybe you could get out of the way on your own.”

“I’ll wear ‘em if you’ll stop diving in front of bullets,” said Kowalski, narrowing his eyes.

“Sure,” said Ray, not meaning it even a little. It was a stupid deal anyway. No way was he going to stand by and watch Kowalski get shot, no matter what he’d promised.

“Yeah, right,” said Kowalski, clearly seeing right through him. “You know what your problem is, Vecchio? You’ve got no sense of self preservation. You just lay yourself down and let anyone who wants to walk right over you.”

“You sure you’re not talking about yourself there, Kowalski?”

“Do you see me lying down? I got up and walked right back to the U. S. of A., and you don’t see me throwing myself in front of bullets meant for somebody else.”

“You’re welcome, by the way,” said Ray.

“I’m not thanking you!” Kowalski was yelling now too. It had been a couple of months since they’d tried taking a swing at each other; a crowd was starting to gather to see if they’d do it again.

“Oh, you mean yelling at me in the parking lot isn’t just an odd way to express gratitude? Funny, I must have confused you with someone with manners.”

“Yeah, manners and a big hat. Would you get it through your head already? Save your stupid heroics for someone who wants them. Or, hey, you could even look out for yourself for once, see how that goes.”

“That’s great, Kowalski,” Ray said flatly. “You sound just like my Pop. And you know what? I always made a point of ignoring his advice.” He shoved past Kowalski, jostling him hard with his good arm, and went inside.

The next day Kowalski showed up with his glasses on and neither of them said a word about it. 

In retrospect, the fight wasn’t really about Fraser after all.

 

They met Stella on a Saturday, after the shower. Ray had spent Friday night at Kowalski's and not bothered to go home, which meant he could at least chivvy them out the door on time. 

"You want to go first?" he asked. "I can wait a couple minutes and then follow you." Kowalski blinked at him.

"Why?"

"So it's less obvious we left together, why do you think?"

"Oh, uh. You want to hide this from her?"

"You _don't_?"

"I wasn't gonna announce it or anything, but it's probably a lost cause. It's Stella- she used to pick out guys I thought were hot in five seconds flat. I don't think she'll miss somebody I'm actually sleeping with."

"Oh," said Ray. That would have been nice to know earlier. It wouldn't have changed his mind about going, but he could have prepared himself a little. He hadn't told Stella all the things that Kowalski apparently had.

"Hey, we can try," said Kowalski. "You go ahead and follow. Maybe she's lost her touch." He gave Ray a rueful smile and got into his car. Ray sat on the step to wait. It occurred to him too late that Stella had invited him precisely so she wouldn't have to be alone with Kowalski, but, well, she could handle it for five minutes. If things blew up before Ray got there it would be a sign that dinner had been a bad idea in the first place.

They'd waited for him to sit down, so when he arrived they were leaning against the wall in the entrance to the restaurant, talking. There didn't seem to be any bloodshed. Stella looked just like she had when she'd dropped him off at the Orlando airport, though her hair was a little shorter, cut recently. Ray was surprised at how good it was to see her. He kissed her on the cheek, avoiding Kowalski's eyes, and they all sat down.

As it turned out, having the three of them together went surprisingly well. None of their various history was shared between all of them, so the conversation stayed light, focused on the present instead of the past. There were six months of work stories to tell, family news to catch up on. They made it all the way through getting their food without an awkward pause or an argument.

"So how was the shower?" asked Ray into the first silence.

"Really lovely," said Stella. "I'm glad I came in."

"Who's she marrying?" asked Kowalski. He was the least composed of the three of them, but that wasn't much of a surprise. It wasn't rare for Kowalski to be the least composed person in any given room. He wasn't doing too badly, there was just a little too much intensity in his manner for three friends catching up over dinner.

"A guy named Ian. You'd like him, he's sweet. He's a pediatrician."

"He'd better treat her right, that's all I'm saying," said Kowalski, pointing his fork at Stella. She laughed.

"This is your cousin?" Ray asked.

"Yeah, she's the baby of the family. I'm not sure you ever met her, actually. She's, oh, twenty-seven, tall, curly brown hair?"

"I don't think so, no."

"No way is she twenty-seven," said Kowalski.

"I know, don't you feel old?"

"And she's marrying someone else, to boot," he said, shaking his head.

"Kimmy was in love with Ray for years," Stella explained. "Since she was little."

"Tell it properly, Stel," protested Kowalski.

"You tell it."

"Nah, I want to bask in my own glory." She rolled her eyes and he grinned at her.

"The year was nineteen seventy-something-or-other," she said, turning to Ray. "My mother's family used to go on vacation together for two weeks every August. We rented this place, a bunch of cute little cabins in the woods, spread out over maybe three-quarters of a mile, each family in one cabin. The kids would just run around wherever. Except one day Kimmy, who was maybe seven or eight at the time, somehow got onto one of the hiking trails thinking it was a path between the cabins and got completely lost.

"Now, Ray had a summer job- what were you doing that year?"

"Landscape architecture," said Kowalski, straight-faced.

"Trimming hedges," Stella translated, "but he'd driven out for the weekend, and he happened to be the one to find her."

"Don't make it sound so exciting," said Kowalski. "No one even realized she was missing for the first couple hours- they all just assumed she was playing at another cabin- so she was out there a long time. It was already dark when I found her."

"And you carried her all the way back, uphill, outrunning a bear, right?" said Stella with a smile.

"I gave her a piggyback," said Kowalski. "And we did see a bear."

"I thought you said it was dark."

"Fine, we saw a bear-like shadow. It was terrifying."

It probably had been, to a city teenager carrying a little girl through the woods after dark. 

"Anyway, she had a crush on him for years after that."

"She made her mother sign her up for ballroom lessons just so she could dance with me."

"It's true. It was adorable."

"I can't believe she's getting married," said Kowalski. "I always imagined teasing her about it at her wedding, making an embarrassing toast about how she was in love with me, something like that. It'll be weird not to be there."

"I know," said Stella. There was a long pause where she could have asked him to be her plus one, just as friends, for old times' sake. She didn't say anything, just held Kowalski's gaze. Ray wondered for the first time if _she_ was seeing anyone. 

Kowalski looked away first. "I need the bathroom," he mumbled, pushing himself away from the table. Stella watched carefully until the door closed behind him. So she had something to say that she didn't want Kowalski to hear; Ray was really, really not expecting it to be:

"I hope you're serious about this, because if you hurt him I will hunt you down."

"What?" he managed.

"He's already had his heart broken twice," she said. "He isn't…he doesn't recover fast. If you do it again I'm not sure he'll get back up at all."

It didn't seem worth explaining that she had the wrong idea about them, that Kowalski was still in pieces after heartbreak number two. 

"You know about Fraser?" he asked instead.

"I can read between the lines. The only reason he's getting off easy is that I can't get to him up in Canada."

That made Ray bristle, even though he didn't have any particular reason to believe Fraser was innocent in whatever had happened. It was just instinct. It occurred to him, strangely, that if you put the four of them in a room and made them choose sides it might well come out as him and Fraser against the two Kowalskis. Or maybe Fraser would jump ship and pull for Kowalski's side, even if Kowalski didn't want him. He wasn't sure anymore.

"Stella, you divorced him," he pointed out. 

"I know," she said, shaking her head. "It doesn't really matter though, that's the ridiculous part. When you live with someone for that long they just end up being some weird kind of family. Even if you can't stand them you can't let anybody else hurt them, you know?" 

"Even with the way he was after the divorce?" Not that Ray had been there, but he'd heard. Any story you couldn't get from Frannie was, well, nonexistent, for the most part.

"Well, I hated him, that was for sure, but it didn't change anything. I think we're stuck with each other at this point." She shrugged. "He's just…mine."

"You ever tell him any of this?"

"What do you think?" Right, of course she hadn't. "I'm pretty sure he gets it, though. He couldn't get rid of me if he tried, either, he just hasn't tried as hard."

It was strange- the last thing he'd expected from her- but it made sense, in a way. The two of them were tied together in his head, too, dancing and sleeping habits and phrases they used, weird shared habits like keeping the scissors in the knife block or the peanut butter in the fridge, a hundred tiny things.

"Can I ask you something?" he said. 

"Asking's free," she said, which was another Stella saying he'd forgotten about. 

"If you still love him-" she hadn't said it outright, but Ray could read between the lines, too- "why the divorce?"

"And here I was expecting a hard question." She gave him a rueful smile. "We grew up, Ray, that's all. We just grew up."

By the time Kowalski got back to the table they were safely catching up on mutual acquaintances from Florida, but he wasn't fooled. 

"I am never leaving you two alone again," he said, sitting down. He pointed back and forth between them a few times before settling on Ray. "You. Don't believe anything she told you, it's all lies."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Ray. "Eat your food, I want to hear about the fate of my poor bowling alley."

They all said goodbye in the parking lot after dinner. Ray kissed Stella on the cheek again, but Kowalski just jammed his hands in his pockets and nodded to her. Once she'd pulled away he followed Ray over to the Riv, leaning against the driver's side door to stop him opening it.

"Okay, so what'd you two really talk about while I was in the bathroom?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"She gave me the speech."

"What? What do you mean?" Ray leaned up against the car next to him so their shoulders were touching.

"You know, the speech. If I hurt you, she'll kill me. That speech."

Kowalski stared at him for a second, until he figured out that Ray was serious, and then he put his hands over his face and laughed and laughed until his eyes were wet.

 

Stella called him again the next night, on his cell phone this time.

"I'm so sorry I didn't get to ask how you were," she said. "I think I was just too worried about dinner. Ray and I haven't made it through a meal in something like three years. That's no excuse, though, I feel terrible."

"Don't worry about it." Ray hadn't even noticed. He'd been thinking about the evening as a Kowalski affair that he just happened to be attending, not a chance for he and Stella to catch up.

"How are you doing, though? I really do care, even when I'm awful and don't ask."

Ray took a second to think about it. Stella more than anything deserved a real answer; she was the one who'd been there when he'd finally finished the last course of pain medication and realized it had been the only thing keeping Vegas out of his head at night. She hadn't blinked an eye, just set out to help him test every insomnia cure in the books, weird pillows and white noise machines and strict schedules and diets, one after the other. None of them had worked, but that wasn't Stella's fault. When things had fallen apart it had been because Ray didn't want to deal with the mess that was in his head, not because she didn't.

"I'm doing all right," he said. "Still not sleeping so well, but it's good to be back somewhere familiar. I think it's helping."

"Good," she said. "I'm glad to hear it. And I really am sorry for not asking earlier. When Ray and I get in a room together we just have trouble seeing other people sometimes."

"Pun intended?" asked Ray, and they laughed about it, but he was thinking that there was his relationship with Stella summed up nice and neat: she wanted to know how he was doing, really honestly cared, but she only asked a day later, and when she said Ray in a sentence she still meant Kowalski.

 

Ray kept waiting for there to be some fallout from dinner, but Kowalski seemed utterly unchanged, and after a while he relaxed and let it go. Stella didn't get back in touch with either of them, at least not to Ray's knowledge. Everything stayed calm for almost a month. He and Kowalski had a good routine now, at the station and otherwise, and even drama at the Vecchio household seemed to be at a lull. 

He should have known better than to get used to it.

The apartment buzzer sounded in the other room one night in April, making Ray sit bolt upright in bed. He peered at the clock, heart pounding. The numbers reluctantly resolved into 1:34. Damn. It had taken him maybe an hour and a half to fall asleep in the first place, and now some drunk kid looking for his friends in the next apartment was going to cost him the same again. Next to him Kowalski mumbled something and stirred, nudging his foot against Ray's without ever entirely waking up. Sometimes he was more jealous of Kowalski's ability to sleep than he was of anything else.

He was just lying down again when the buzzer went off a second time. The sound was still startling in the quiet, even when he was already awake. 

"Stop it," mumbled Kowalski, and stuck his face in a pillow. For some reason that made Ray's anxiety ease up a little. A neighbor with lost keys, he decided, swinging his legs out of bed and padding out to the hallway. A very apologetic neighbor, if they knew what was good for them.

He hit the intercom button.

"Hello?"

"It's Maria. I'm sorry it's so late. Let me up?" Even with the crackle of the shitty speaker he could tell she was crying.

Something was off. If there was some kind of emergency she should have called him, not taken all the time to drive to his apartment at one-thirty in the morning. Showing up here meant someone using her to make him open the door. He thought briefly of Fraser pulling the phone out of a bank vault so he couldn't talk to Frannie, but it was too late, he'd already answered.

He buzzed her in. That gave him maybe ninety seconds before they were at his apartment door. Somewhere inside him a wall went up, or maybe came down, and he was suddenly awake and calm and cold, the room slamming into sharp focus, countdown ticking in his head. He went back to the bedroom to get his gun from the bedside table. Kowalski was pulling his jeans on, which was the fastest Ray had ever seen him go from asleep to awake.

"She should have called, right?" he asked. Ray nodded. Both of their guns were in the drawer; he passed Kowalski his and left him digging around for his glasses.

There wasn't much that could be done in the minute he had left. He yanked the living room window all the way open, in case they had a chance to make a break for the fire escape. That wouldn't do a lot of good unless they had somewhere to go. He wasn't sure where his keys were but Kowalski's were on the coffee table, so he pocketed them. Kowalski came out and did his own quick survey of the room, following Ray's glance into the kitchen, which would give him the best sightline to the door and a corner to hide behind. Ray thought about turning on the lights so he wouldn't be blinded when he opened the door, but the dark was too much of an advantage. Whoever had Maria wouldn't be used to it, and it gave Kowalski a better chance of going unnoticed. Kowalski's element of surprise was just about the only chance they had.

There was a knock on the door. Ray checked the peephole; Maria looked upset but unharmed, thank god. The narrow view didn't reveal anything else. He looked at Kowalski, who nodded to him and melted back around the corner. Ray took the safety off his gun, pleased to note that his hands were steady, and opened the door.

Even squinting in the light he could tell there was no one else in the hallway. He pulled Maria inside, slamming the door shut behind her and locking it, bolt-handle-chain. 

"What…" she said. When he turned she was watching the gun in his hand.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine. I mean, not really, but it's nothing like that. I didn't mean to worry you. I'm sorry, I didn't think…" she trailed off again. Nobody in his family thought about the target painted on his back after Vegas, not if they could help it. He wasn't even sure they all realized it was there.

"What is it?" he asked, carefully clicking the safety back on and setting the gun on the coffee table. "Frannie? The kids?"

"Everyone's fine. I'm sorry, Ray, I should have called, I just didn't want to wake anyone up."

The kitchen light flicked on and Kowalski came around the corner, evidently having decided there was no danger. They all blinked at each other in the sudden brightness. It sunk in that Kowalski was barefoot and shirtless in his apartment at one-thirty in the morning, his hair flattened on one side where he'd been sleeping on it until three minutes ago. 

"Hi, Maria," he said.

"Hi, Ray."

"Didn't mean to sneak up on you. We thought if you were in trouble it'd be better for me to stay hidden, that's all." They'd agreed on that without saying a word, Ray realized. Maybe partnership- with normal people, not Canadians- just took time.

"What are you doing here?" asked Maria, trying to straighten her hair with one hand. Ray couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or if it was just a natural reaction to Kowalski's terrible case of bedhead. 

"We're stuck in the middle of a case," said Kowalski. "We were working late enough that I just crashed on the couch."

That was plausible, except the couch looked perfectly put together.

"You couldn't even get him a blanket?" Maria said, turning to him. Kowalski winced behind her.

"I threw it in my room while you were coming upstairs," he said, not missing a beat. "Not much point in Kowalski hiding if you can see someone else was sleeping here." He used to be a bad liar. When they were kids Maria had coached him on the stories she wanted him to tell to cover for her, making him repeat them over and over until she was satisfied. That was a long time ago.

"I'm up now, " said Kowalski. "I'll head home and give you two some peace."

"Yeah, and wrap your car around a tree when you fall asleep in five minutes," said Ray. "There's a reason I didn't let you drive home before." If Kowalski had woken up with half as much adrenaline as Ray he'd be fine, but something about the easy way he'd offered to go made Ray feel bad. Besides, the only way Kowalski was going to wake up on time after all this was if Ray dragged him out of bed. 

"Well, I'll give you guys some privacy, then," said Kowalski with a shrug, heading back to the bedroom and shutting the door.

"I'm sorry," said Maria again. "I wasn't thinking. I just wanted to get out of the house."

"What happened?"

"I should have called-"

"Maria!"

"It's Tony. We had a fight, and-" her voice wavered on the last word and she cut herself off, swallowing down tears again. Ray saw red. He took her by the shoulders and looked her over carefully; nothing caught his eye, but he of all people knew that didn't mean much. If that bastard had laid so much as a finger on her Ray was going to have him killed, he could do it, there was enough of Langoustini left for that. It was all in his head, who and where and how, all the ways he could get the money and all the people he hadn't taken down, the simple guys low on the food chain who did jobs like this.

"No, it's not that," she said. "You've got it- god, Ray, you've got it backwards. I threw a clock at him." She started to cry in earnest as she said it. Ray pulled her in to let her bury her face in his shoulder almost automatically, rage draining away into nothing but shock. He'd spent so many years dreading turning into his father. His whole life, it felt like, and he'd always worried about the men his sisters dated, because everyone knew there were patterns to these things. He hadn't ever considered this.

"Is he okay?"

"I missed," she admitted through the tears.

"That's my sister," he said, hoping to get a laugh out of her, but to no avail.

"I was just so mad," she said. "He never listens to anything I say. He hears me but he doesn't listen, and we end up having the same argument again and again, and I couldn't stand it, I was so _angry_."

"I know," said Ray. He'd smashed Guy Rankin's face in once, before Huey had pulled him off. He'd been ready to go after Tony the same way just a minute before.

"I don't know what to do," said Maria. Ray didn't know either, so he just held her and stroked her hair and told her it would be all right.

"A clock, Ray."

"I know."

"Of all the things-"

"I know. It'll be okay, I promise, it will. It's just a thing that happened."

"How do you know I won't do it again? I didn't even mean to." 

"Because you did it and you left and came here and your kids are still asleep in bed," he said, pulling her gently over to the couch. There were tissues on the shelf under the coffee table; she grabbed a handful and wiped her face as she sat down.

"You wanna stay here tonight?" he asked. "Kowalski can bunk in with me. I'll come home with you for breakfast if you want, you can make it look like you just drove out to pick me up early."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure." He gave her a sideways hug and she took the deep, shuddering breath of someone who had finished crying, but barely.

"I just can't go back tonight. I don't know what to say to him."

"It'll work itself out," he said. "Here, let me get you a blanket."

 

Kowalski was still awake after he got Maria settled on the couch, which was a surprise. He didn't say anything, but he shifted over when Ray got into bed, settling on his back with his hands under his head.

"You hear?" Ray asked, barely above a whisper. The walls of his apartment weren't all that thick.

"Yeah," admitted Kowalski. He slid one foot over the center line to touch Ray's again. 

"We had this clock," Ray said after a minute. "When I was a kid. It sat on the table under the stairs. I don't know if it was a family heirloom or just something my Ma saw at the store or what, I was really little. Five or six, maybe. Frannie doesn't remember it at all. Anyway, he threw it at her- Ma, not Frannie- one day in the middle of an argument, just smashed it right at her feet. She made us wear shoes inside for two days until she was sure all the shards were gone." 

"What'd your dad do?"

"I don't remember. Left, probably, he never stuck around too long after they fought." He couldn't help but think of Maria fleeing the house at one in the morning. That wasn't fair to her; she'd come here, not gone out to a bar, and she'd done it because she was scared. It was different.

"He wasn't that bad," he said.

Kowalski snorted.

"No, I mean it."

"Vecchio, no offense, your dad was utter slime."

"I'm not saying he was a great role model or anything, I just don't want to make it seem worse than it was. He never did wrong by Frannie or Maria, and he never hurt us badly, just knocked us around some. I knew kids who had it worse."

"He landed you in the emergency room, age ten," said Kowalski quietly. He was still looking at the ceiling.

"Anything could have caused that."

"But it was him, right?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess."

"It was an accident."

Kowalski snorted again.

"No, really, it was. All he did was slap me. I lost my balance, tripped on the rug, and hit my head on the corner of this antique cedar chest we used to have. Just about split my skull open."

Kowalski rolled over, propping himself on an elbow and studying Ray's face in the dim light from the window. After a moment he reached out and touched a finger to Ray's temple, raising his eyebrows in question. He was about an inch off, but Ray was impressed anyway; that was close, for nothing but the memory of the hospital report that must have been buried in his file somewhere. The scar had faded years ago. He pointed to the right spot; Kowalski nodded and rolled back to his side of the bed. 

Ray remembered two main things about the incident: the truly astonishing amount of blood, and the way his father had been frantic with worry at the hospital. He'd been secretly pleased about that, though now the memory made him feel a little sick. Pop had always cared about him, in a strange way that had to do with Ray being his only son, but in the end it turned out that caring didn't mean a whole lot.

"Hey, Kowalski," he said. 

"Yeah?"

"Do something for me. When we're out working, don't let me hurt anybody, okay? I get mad sometimes."

"You're asking me?"

"Yeah."

"You know I got voted most likely to go down for police brutality, right?"

"I'm asking you."

Kowalski paused for a minute, like he was actually thinking it over. "All right," he said eventually. It was stupid- Kowalski punched walls, after all- but it still made Ray feel just a little bit better.

"All right," he said, and closed his eyes. Maybe he'd even sleep.

 

Maria left early in the morning, turning down Ray’s offer to come with her. He went home for dinner instead. Everything seemed normal, as far as he could tell: his mother fussing over him eating on his own so much, Maria’s kids talking over each other, Frannie exclaiming every time the baby moved. Maria and Tony weren’t talking much, but that was par for the course when they were trying to get three kids to eat their vegetables and not pick on each other. Tony didn’t say a word about the clock incident. Ray didn’t think he would; he was the kind of guy who thought other people knowing something like that would make him look weak. He’d always reminded Ray of his father, with that same self-centered sort of pride, but at least Tony never backed up his attitude with his fists. Ray could live with finding him annoying.

He went to church on Sunday too, at Maria’s hinted request. That itself wasn’t so unusual. He’d gone often enough since coming back to Chicago, though more for his family and the tradition than for any real religious motivation. He refused to go to confession, though, no matter how much everyone urged him to. It was plain enough that his time in Vegas was weighing on him. What they didn’t understand was that he wanted it to. He didn't want to be forgiven or absolved, didn’t want to let that burden go. He wanted to get his feet back under him, thought he was doing pretty well at that these days, but that was all. The only thing worse than being kept awake because of the things he’d done would have been sleeping easily despite them. Armando Langoustini could have forgiven himself. Ray couldn’t stand to; it was one of the only lines left between them. 

His mother hugged him when he told then to go on, that he was going to stay a little longer, Maria standing by in quiet support. He only felt a little bad about deceiving her. Maybe it would bring her some peace of mind, thinking that he’d confessed. Instead he sat near the back and waited for Maria, a long time. The easy duplicity made him think of all the lies they’d told as kids: why they were late home from school, how they’d gotten bruised, where they were going at night. In high school they would pretend they were going out to movies together- rated R, so Frannie couldn’t come and spoil everything- and split off for a few hours, meeting back a couple blocks away from home. They’d figured out early on that lies were easier if they could corroborate each other’s stories. Ray still didn’t know where Maria had been sneaking off to on those nights. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, too wrapped up in the idea of Irene waiting for him.

He made himself abandon that train of thought, standing up to pace at the back of the church. The poor box still had bindlestitch marks on it. Ray tucked five dollars in, telling himself it made him think of Fraser and not of the way it had felt to smash up Frankie Zuko’s face. Fraser had jumped down from the balcony here. He’d been the only person in the station who’d ever even heard of a bindlestitch. 

Ray and Kowalski were doing pretty well as partners, gradually dragging their combined solve rate out of the pit it’d been in, but Kowalski wouldn't have had a clue about specialty leather working tools. They might have figured it out anyway, but that wasn’t the point. He missed working with Fraser. He just missed Fraser, period, missed his inexhaustible supply of bizarre knowledge, the way he talked to Dief like the wolf could actually answer back, his ability to be polite to absolutely anyone, missed knowing him well enough to tell when Fraser was being bitchy under all the courtesy. He hoped his Fraser-to-English dictionary was still working. He had one more month to survive in Chicago before he could go test it out.

“Ready to go,” said Maria, startling him. He gave her a quick hug.

“How’re you doing?”

“I’m okay,” she said. She looked it, too, calmer than he’d seen her since she showed up at his apartment.

“Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

“Thanks. You didn’t have to wait.” He shrugged.

“I don’t mind having a little time to daydream.”

“About anything in particular?” The way she said it made it seem like the answer was going to be some woman. She still considered it her older sibling prerogative to stick her nose in his business.

“Canada,” he said. “Only one month left.”

“Canada?” she looked at him blankly.

“I’m going up to visit Fraser for a couple of weeks. I know I told you about it,” but even as he said the words he lost confidence in them. He’d spent so long carefully not mentioning Fraser with Kowalski that somehow he’d stopped talking about him altogether. He hadn’t intended to keep the trip a secret, but he hadn’t mentioned it either. Come to think of it, he hadn’t told his mother, or Frannie, or- shit.

He hadn’t told Kowalski.

Other than the occasional necessity of filling each other in on old cases, he and Kowalski had talked about Fraser a total of three times: the stakeout in Kowalski’s car, Christmas night in Ray’s, and the argument after Ray had saved Kowalski's life in February. Ray expected another fight when he mentioned that he was going to Canada, or at least for Kowalski to go all tense and cold the way he did when Fraser was on the phone, but he seemed completely calm. He complained a little about getting stuck with all the work while Ray was on vacation, but that was all. He even offered to drive to the airport. 

Ray kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. He closed up everything he could at work, wrote down a long list of all the case-related stuff he'd been keeping in his head, packed his bags, and still nothing. Kowalski picked him up early Saturday morning without a complaint. He even double-parked at the terminal and came around to help Ray haul his luggage out of the trunk.

“Thanks for the ride,” Ray said as Kowalski got back into the driver’s seat.

“Anytime. Say hit to Kat for me.”

“Sure.” It took him a second to connect ‘Kat’ with Constable Wilkinson who answered the RCMP phone. 

Kowalski didn’t ask him to pass any message on to Fraser, just said,

“Have a good trip,” and pulled away from the curb. Ray still hadn’t figured out if it was an act by the time he got on the first plane.

It took about a million hours to get to Fraser. Ray had never slept well on planes even before Vegas, before Fraser had crash-landed them in the middle of the forest; sleeping now didn’t even seem worth trying. By the time he arrived he was exhausted and on edge from remembering the last time he’d been in a tiny Canadian plane. 

It didn’t matter, though, because there was Fraser waiting for him with that same delighted smile from when he’d blown Ray’s cover at the Hotel California- only this time Ray wasn’t worrying about everything coming down around his ears, how he was going to get the three of them out of there alive. This time all he had to do was let Dief’s greeting knock him into Fraser and hold on tight.

Fraser being Fraser, he had to have a long conversation with the pilot and then help unload the rest of the cargo. Ray pitched in without even grumbling. What the hell, it was nice to stretch his muscles after sitting for so long. Between the late-night sun and Fraser’s smile when he saw Ray helping, he mostly forgot about being tired and cranky.

He’d been half-expecting a dog sled, but when they were done Fraser loaded his bags into an honest-to-goodness car and drove them through an honest-to-goodness town on an honest-to-goodness road. He was happily narrating everything they passed, buildings and people and history, but Ray didn’t pay much attention. He figured he already knew everything he needed to about the town (tiny, Canadian) and its citizens (presumably normal-sized, Canadian). Instead he mostly just snuck glances across the car. He’d realized on the plane that it had been more than a year since they’d seen each other. That was long enough that his mental image of Fraser had faded a little bit; he still could have listed all of Fraser’s features perfectly, but somehow the memory of exactly how they fit together had blurred. It was good to see him. 

It only took Ray a minute to realize that there was something different about Fraser, too. It was hard to put a finger on, but he somehow seemed more relaxed even though his posture was as perfect as ever. There was something open about his face that Ray had never seen before. It was a little disquieting to realize that for all the years he’d been trying to read Fraser’s emotions he’d been working off a baseline that was…not unhappy, exactly, but guarded.

Fraser killed the engine about fifteen minutes out of town.

“Here we are,” he said, popping the trunk and going to open the back door for Dief. ‘Here’ was a cabin, but the kind of cabin that was close to being a house rather than close to being a woodshed. There was another building just barely in sight back the way they’d come, but that was it for human habitation. Patches of ground were just starting to show through the melting snow, which stretched as far as the eye could see. Ray looked around and then looked back at Fraser.

“You’re not coming back to Chicago, are you?” he said.

“No, Ray, I’m not.” Fraser said it gravely, but there was a smile in his tone, and Ray couldn’t help but smile back, just to see him happy.

It wasn’t, in the end, as simple as that. Fraser was in his element as tour guide, of course, and it was easy as anything to step back into his orbit, to walk around the beautiful land and the tiny town and tease him when his explanations got too lengthy, make a mess of all the place names just to see the particular face he made. Fraser wore old jeans and sweaters and took them on hikes with no trails. It was easy, out there, to believe this was everything Fraser had ever wanted.

Closer to civilization, though, there were traces of Kowalski everywhere. Both the town and the cabin were larger than Fraser would have chosen himself, and closer to each other. The car had Kowalski’s metaphorical fingerprints all over it. People asked after him when they found out Ray had come from Chicago, some excitedly and some- the ones Ray judged to be friends rather than acquaintances- in hushed tones and with sideways glances at Fraser.

Those were all things that were mostly out of Fraser’s control, though, barring drastic moves like selling the car or moving again. It was the things he could change but didn’t that were the most striking. There was a coffeemaker on the counter, beans he would never use in the cabinet, half a dozen battered romance novels shoved in next to his library of natural history and the collection of his father’s journals. The bedroom was almost entirely taken up by a double bed. Fraser slept on the left, which was Stella’s side, and Ray’s side now, too, like all three of them were sleeping with the ghost of Kowalski. 

They had a good-natured but stubborn hospitality standoff the first night, neither of them willing to let the other sleep on the cot, so they ended up sharing the bed. Ray took Kowalski’s side without comment. Once he got over the initial strangeness he slept more easily there than he had anywhere since Vegas; it gave him an odd feeling that he and Kowalski could have switched lives entirely, that maybe everything would have worked out better that way.

Unlike some people Fraser was reasonable and well-mannered. He didn't flee the room or change the subject when Kowalski's name came up, as it often did in both his and Ray's stories. Instead he adopted a particular careful tone, like he was concentrating hard on remaining appropriate and neutral. It made Ray's heart clench every time he did it. His instinct was to protect Fraser, just like it always had been, to find the guy who'd put that expression on his face and read him the riot act, maybe punch him a couple times if he could do it without Fraser seeing. He kept having to remind himself who that guy was. It was like the Kowalski who'd left his coffee and his books and his palpable absence in Fraser's cabin was one person, and the Kowalski he found himself missing, who he kept wanting to report weird things about Canada to, or tell stupid jokes Fraser wouldn't get, that was someone else entirely. He couldn't seem to hold both of them in his mind at the same time. It was his own fault. If he'd managed to get it through his head that his Kowalski and Fraser's Kowalski were the same damn person, maybe he wouldn't have said anything so resoundingly stupid.

It was about halfway into his visit and Ray had declared his intention to cook dinner. It was a nice thing to do as a guest, and anyway Fraser's cooking skills rated a solid functional and not much more, and Ray was getting a little sick of box pasta and it's-better-you-don't-ask stew. Fraser had some errands to run, so he dropped Ray at the store to pick up whatever he wanted and use the phone. Ray was planning lemon risotto. He'd gotten good at it, and it didn't require much in the way of fresh ingredients, which cost a mint up here in the land of snow, snow, difficult trucking, and snow. Ray could have afforded it if he'd wanted to, but it was the principle of the matter.

He collected the ingredients and a couple of staple items off the list Fraser had given him, then threw in some chocolate bars as extra because he was pretty sure they weren't going to let him pay for the long-distance call he was about to make. The phone was in the back corner. Ray propped his bags against his feet and dialed, following the directions Fraser had written on the back of the grocery list to reach the U.S. and then the number and extension by heart. It rang almost long enough to switch him through to voicemail.

"Chicago PD," said Kowalski at the last second. 

"Hey, Kowalski."

"Vecchio! Hang on a second." There was a scratch and rustle as Kowalski put the phone down, held a shouted conversation that Ray couldn't quite make out, and then picked it up again. "Didn't expect to hear from you."

"Had to make sure you weren't messing things up too badly while I was gone," he said, smiling. It was nice to hear the familiar chaos of the bullpen in the background, especially when he was so far away from it.

"Sorry, did you mean you wanted to hear about how I'm about to tie up the Harrison case on my own?"

"What happened?" asked Ray sharply. The Harrison case wasn't exactly cold, but it was no more than lukewarm. They hadn't had a lead on it in weeks.

"Second break-in, same M.O., got a witness this time. Guess what he said about the suspect?"

"It's a girl?"

"It's a girl," said Kowalski smugly. They'd been arguing that point for ages, until the utter lack of progress forced them to move on. 

Someone asked something out of Ray's earshot. "It's Vecchio," said Kowalski, probably justifying the way he was giving out sensitive information over the phone. There was a pause, and then he spoke direction into the receiver again.

"The lieu says if you're not back in a week he's considering you not only resigned but officially dead and never to be reinstated."

"Message received," said Ray.

"Speaking of which," said Kowalski, his voice gone as carefully neutral as Fraser's ever was, "how are those Canadian survival tips I showed you working out?"

"What?"

"You know, the _tips_ I showed you this fall about _Canada_. The best ways to, uh, keep warm at night."

Subtle was right up there with polite on the list of things Kowalski was not.

"I haven't tried them," said Ray. "Wasn't planning to, either."

"Really?"

"Yes, really." Ray rolled his eyes even though Kowalski couldn't see him. "It's only two weeks and then I'll be back in Chicago where I'll be warm anyway." That was maybe forcing the metaphor a little bit, but whatever. Metaphors had never been Ray's strong point, and Kowalski was the one who'd started talking in code, anyway.

"Oh," said Kowalski, and it was like Ray could actually hear his hackles going down over the phone.

"Idiot. What did you think I was doing up here?"

"Dunno. You wanna hear the details on the Harrison thing?"

"Sure."

They ran through the case for about ten minutes before Fraser pulled up outside. Ray waved to show that he'd be right out.

"Hey, I gotta go," he said. "Keep me updated."

"Okay."

"And wear your glasses if you go in there." Ray winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth- could he sound any more like his mother?- but Kowalski just said,

"I will. See ya, Vecchio," and hung up.

The guy managing the store, whose name Ray had learned and promptly forgotten, wouldn't let him pay for the call. He owed Fraser for something, apparently. Ray made a mental note to find out how much it would have cost and buy some more chocolate or something if he needed to.

Outside, the sun was pouring down. Ray squinted in the sudden brightness, loading the groceries into the back seat next to a truly enormous bag of dog food.

"Did you find everything you wanted?" Fraser asked, waiting for Ray to buckle his seatbelt before he pulled away slowly down the street. Even Fraser's ridiculous driving habits seemed normal up here.

"Just about. There's nothing important missing, it'll be fine."

"Good."

"They were out of that cereal you wanted, though."

"That's all right. We can come back later in the week. I'll need to stop by the RCMP office, anyway."

"I'm amazed you've stayed away this long, honestly." Ray reached over to pat him on the shoulder. Fraser made a pained face at the road that he was carefully not taking his eyes off, though there weren't even any other cars to avoid.

"I’m sure Constable Wilkinson will ably handle any situation that might arise," he said.

"Yeah, and I’m sure you'll worry yourself out of your skin staying away. It's really fine if you want to go in for a day or two. I can take care of myself."

"Of course. You're here for such a short time, though, I'd hate to waste it."

"I'm flattered," said Ray, surprised. Fraser gave him- or rather, the windshield- a short smile.

"How is your family, by the way? I meant to ask."

"Hmm?"

"Were you able to make a call from the store?"

"Oh, yeah. I was talking to Kowalski, though."

"Ah," said Fraser quietly, and Ray was an idiot because Fraser was a detective too. He could put this new piece of evidence together with the way Kowalski figured in all of Ray's stories, with all the times he'd called and caught them together outside of work, hell, Kowalski had answered Ray's phone. There was no way Fraser could look at all of that and not figure out what was really going on.

There was a window there, a couple seconds where Ray could have made some excuse about needing to call the station because of a case, but he missed it. He was caught on the enormity of the fact that he'd picked up the phone in Canada and called Kowalski instead of his family. It hadn't even seemed strange. Ray knew how to put two and two together just like Fraser did, even when the person he was deducing was himself. It was such a staggering realization that he didn't think, didn't think at all before saying right out loud,

"I think I love him."

Fraser's face went perfectly, horribly expressionless. "I'm sorry I could never return your feelings for me," he said.

Stunned silence reigned.

It was like Ray had turned the conversation into a fistfight without ever intending to and Fraser had hit back with the hardest thing he had, just out of instinct. Trust Fraser's most painful weapon to be nothing but bald truth. For a moment Ray actually couldn't breathe, like Fraser really had sucker punched him. All this time. God, it was humiliating.

"I'm sorry," said Fraser eventually. Ray didn't say anything- there didn't seem to be anything to say- just turned and looked out the window. He had the stupid urge to pull his feet up onto the seat and curl in around himself, like it was actually a physical hurt. He sat still.

"Ray…" tried Fraser. For some reason it made him remember Kowalski telling him about Fraser saying _Ray_ in bed. He wondered if Kowalski had ever gotten him to say it in such an anguished voice.

Fraser had actually turned to look at him; he could see the movement in his peripheral vision. Ray didn't look back. After a second Fraser's conscience got the better of him and he turned back to the road. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

"You've got outside stuff to do, right?" asked Ray when they pulled up in front of the cabin. "Chopping wood or, I don't know, something dog-related?"

"Yes," said Fraser, still all quiet and meek. Ray didn't meet his eyes.

"Good," he said shortly, gathered his groceries from the back seat, and shut the cabin door in Fraser's face.

He took the length of the risotto's prep time to be angry. It was easier to fight with Fraser when Fraser wasn't there, which he'd learned a long time ago. If Fraser was in the room he'd just be aggressively, earnestly apologetic, and it was hard to yell at apologetic. He had a sudden feeling Kowalski might know what he meant. Kowalski, at least, would get right back in his face. Fraser had probably never gotten in anyone's face in his life.

When there was nothing left to do but stir the risotto while it cooked he made himself let it go. That was easy enough. Staying angry had taken effort; underneath he was mostly hurt, and embarrassed, and sad. He set the timer and just sat down at the kitchen table and felt sorry for himself for a minute. Sorry, and jealous, desperately jealous that Kowalski had gotten everything Ray had ever wanted and he'd been ten months undercover in Las Vegas, which had been horrible, though he'd never said that out loud quite so plainly. Vegas had made him someone he didn't want to be, and Kowalski had taken his life and somehow been better at it, or more attractive, or something, and nothing, _nothing_ about it was fair.

When the timer rang he banged his fist on the table a few times, took a deep breath, and cracked the door open. An inquisitive canine head appeared, along with a burst of cool evening air.

"Yeah, yeah, you smell dinner," Ray said, nudging Dief with a foot when he tried to push inside. "Go tell Fraser it's ready and you can have the leftovers, how about that?" Dief gave him a long look and trotted off. Ray went to set the table, shaking his head at himself. The wolf-related insanity was apparently catching. From the window above the sink he could see Dief disappear around the corner of the cabin, and then a minute later reappear with Fraser in tow. Ray stared for a second. He found that he was mentally filing the story away to tell Kowalski- it was kind of uncanny, even if you figured the wolf wasn't as deaf as he pretended to be- and that helped a little, enough that he could smile and say,

"Dinner is served," when Fraser hesitated in the doorway. He felt a little guilty that he'd kicked Fraser out of his own home, but there was nothing to do about it now but serve up both plates and hope for the best.

Fraser hadn't said a word since he'd come in. That was fair, maybe, because all he'd do was apologize again and Ray still didn't want to hear it. It left them sitting awkwardly in silence, though, so in the end he bit the bullet and started it.

"You knew?" was all he managed, but Fraser's head came up like this was his only chance at atonement and he was determined not to blow it.

"Yes, Ray," he said seriously. Ray opened his mouth, but he'd run out of words. There still wasn't anything much to say; he was embarrassed, Fraser was sorry, and none of it was going to change anything. A secret he'd thought he had wasn't a secret, that was all.

"All right," he said finally.

"Yes, Ray," said Fraser again, still with that same intensity, like he could will it to actually be all right if he just tried hard enough. Looking at him, it came to Ray that he was probably never going to not love Fraser, and that was…well, it didn't matter if it was okay or not. It just was.

He took a bite of risotto, because it smelled good and it was getting cold, and because it was taking a lot to meet Fraser's eyes just then. Fraser followed suit, his expression breaking into genuine surprise.

"This is delicious!" he said, and Ray almost laughed just from the release of tension in the room. Even Diefenbaker went from alert to lying down and gazing hopefully at the food.

"Hah," said Ray. "And you doubted me."

"I didn't," said Fraser. "I never have."

 

They were mostly okay after that. Fraser could fill an awkward silence like he was getting paid for it, and Ray himself wasn't a slouch in the conversation department, so they muscled their way through the evening by pretending everything was normal until it more or less was. Ray only faltered a little when they were going to bed. It seemed weird to sleep with Fraser now, but he reminded himself that nothing had changed. Fraser had known when they shared the bed last night, and the night before that, and he knew tonight, and it was fine. It felt different, though, lying still and listening to Fraser breathe on the other side of the invisible middle line, knowing that he knew. It took Ray a couple of hours to fall asleep. He wasn't sure how long exactly, but he was awake for sunset and he knew that meant at least one in the morning. He was hyper-aware of the line between himself and Fraser, like could burn himself on it if he wasn't careful. His side of the bed felt empty without Kowalski's foot pressed against his shin.

They went into town again on Thursday, to pick up cereal and stop by the RCMP office, though Fraser tried to disguise that errand by taking Ray to lunch at the diner that just happened to be next door. He didn't mind. The food was good, and he liked going to the office. He had what he thought was a good rapport going with Constable Wilkinson. A couple years ago- before Vegas, before everything- he might have flirted with her, but now it seemed too complicated. He thought she might like him better for not doing it, anyway.

She was typing something when they came in, but stopped to rummage through the papers on her desk. Ray hadn't known there were Mounties who understood pile organization systems before he met her. He suspected it drove Fraser crazy, which made him like Wilkinson even more.

"There's a message from Ray Kowalski," she said. Ray couldn't see Fraser's face from where he was standing, but Wilkinson's apologetic wince told him everything he needed to know. "It's for Detective Vecchio," she added. "Sorry. I should have said." She twirled a yellow legal pad so it was facing him. Ray stepped up to the desk and skimmed it, an odd combination of Kowalski's words in Wilkinson's neat script.

"You're welcome to use our phone to call him back," said Fraser. "I have several things to attend to in my office."

It was Ray's turn to wince. Fraser offering to leave so Ray could call Kowalski was nothing short of terrible. He didn't really know how to cope when the person he wanted to punch for hurting Fraser was himself.

"No need," he said hurriedly. "He's just letting me know he got this burglary case we've been on for ages wrapped up. Here, look." He handed the pad over and tried not to notice that Fraser held on to it too long, given what Ray knew about how fast he could read. It was probably the first word Fraser had seen or heard from Kowalski in months, he realized. 

"Congratulations," Fraser said eventually, handing the pad back.

"Yeah, well, it's nice to have someone do all your work while you're on vacation."

"Speaking of which, I've been letting Constable Wilkinson do far more than her share," said Fraser smoothly. "Ray, I'll be just a minute." He disappeared into his office. Ray exchanged a helpless look with Wilkinson.

"Kowalski specifically asked me to say hi to you, by the way," he said, keeping his voice down. There was a closed door between them, but this was Fraser.

"Tell him I say hi back," she said, looking genuinely pleased. "And that he could pick up the phone once in a while. I miss him."

"Yeah," said Ray, and stopped himself from adding, _me too_.

 

The night before he left, Fraser disappeared for a minute and came back with a heavy-looking bag over one shoulder.

"Come on, it's getting late," he said, jerking his head toward the door. Ray blinked at him and got his shoes.

"We going somewhere?"

"Just the backyard."

"Fraser, you don't have a backyard. You have a country's worth of wilderness that you plopped a house into. That's like the opposite of a backyard."

"If you say so, Ray."

"I do."

"Well, I hope it will be enough like a backyard to suffice."

"Suffice for what?"

Fraser gave him a look that was trying for innocent but was a little too pleased to really pull it off. He hefted the bag.

"For camping, of course."

Fraser showed him how to set up the tent and then took it all down and made him do it again by himself, with the ground cloth and fly and stakes and everything even though it wasn't going to be wet or windy. The third time Ray made Fraser swear to be quiet unless he was actually about to break something or hurt himself, and he got the whole thing set up again with no outside instructions at all, which made him feel like king of the world. Fraser showed him how to gather firewood- not that he needed that much instruction- and cooked them dinner over the flames.

"I wish I'd known we were doing this," Ray said when they were done, idly twisting the end of a long stick he'd found through the fire. "I would have picked up s'more makings last time we were in town."

"I'm sorry," said Fraser. "I can go now." 

"No, no, it's fine." He didn't really want more than half of one, anyway; his sweet tooth had faded since the last time he'd wanted to try camping. S'mores at a campfire were just an automatic thought.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Benny, sit down. This is wonderful." Ray took a deep breath, savoring the smoke and the cold air. You could tell you weren't in a city just by the quality of the oxygen. "It's beautiful up here," he said.

"Isn't it?" said Fraser. He had that smile again, the one Ray had seen the first week before the whole calling Kowalski debacle. He was glad. He wanted to remember Fraser smiling like that when he got home.

They stayed out to watch the impossibly late sunset over the last of the coals, even though it was hours past any reasonable bedtime. When darkness finally started to descend they went back in to put the dishes away and get ready for bed. ("See? We're right next to the cabin." "Fine, Fraser, it's a backyard.") Ray changed into pajamas and put his shoes back on, which felt a little odd, but he definitely wasn't going out barefoot. As he left Dief gave him a look like he didn't understand why Ray would want to sleep outside when there was a perfectly good cabin right here.

"Sometimes I don't even believe you're a wild animal," Ray told him. Diefenbaker sighed and put his nose down on his paws.

When Ray crawled inside the tent Fraser had already set up two sleeping bags, complete with clean white sheets that Ray had never seen before. He stared.

"You remembered the sheets?"

"Yes?" said Fraser, looking uncertain.

"You had a head wound! You couldn't even remember my name some of the time, and yet you retained the sheets?"

"They seemed important to you," said Fraser. Ray shook his head.

"You are incredible."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"Mm," said Fraser, in a tone that meant _sure it wasn't_. Ray laughed and climbed into his sleeping bag.

It turned out that tents were Fraser's variation on the stakeout confessional theme. It fit the criteria well enough: a small, isolated space they were sharing without looking at each other, or at least with it too dark to tell if they were. Fraser opened with,

"I hope you didn't get the impression that I'm angry about you and Ray Kowalski," which was so entirely unexpected that Ray floundered for a response.

"I care about you both a great deal, of course," continued Fraser, "and I want you to be happy. I think you're quite well-suited to each other, actually."

"Uh," said Ray intelligently. Fraser had clearly been planning this little speech while he'd been busy trying to figure out whether he could move the rock that was digging into his side without looking like a wuss.

"I imagine you can provide him with a number of things I couldn't," said Fraser. "I'm afraid I couldn't be want he wanted."

Ray sighed. He wanted to be done hurting Fraser. That wasn't so much to ask, was it?

"I think he couldn't be what he wanted, up here," he said, remembering the story Kowalski had told on stakeout. "I don't think there's anything you could have done about that."

"Mm," said Fraser again. In the dark Ray couldn't tell if that meant he was considering Ray's words or ignoring them. He shifted around to look at the blackness above him instead of the blackness where Fraser was.

"Look," he said, "I'm sorry I was MIA when things went down with you two. I should have been there when you needed a friend. I wish I had."

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you when you came back from undercover," replied Fraser. "I think about it often. I should have taken it upon myself to find you."

There were a lot of sorry-I-couldn'ts in their relationship, thought Ray. Sorry I couldn't let her go, sorry I couldn't see reason, sorry I couldn't pick you up at the airport. Most of them where things Ray didn't like thinking about.

"I'm making a new rule. No more apologies. It's a camping rule. Apologies make the tent fall down."

"All right," said Fraser, sounding amused. After a pause he ventured, "Perhaps just one more? I really am sorry that-"

"Fraser!" He really didn't want to hear _unable to return your feelings_ again. It was his last night in Canada, and they were camping in Fraser's not-a-backyard. He wanted to remember being content.

"Sorry," said Fraser. "Oh-" he cut himself off rather than apologize for illicitly apologizing. Ray laughed.

"I just wanted to say that I do care about you," Fraser said finally. "Very much. You are my closest friend."

"Closer than Dief?" Ray asked, just to see him prevaricate.

"Well, my closest human friend, of course. I suppose I might term Diefenbaker something more like a companion, though of course-"

"Relax, I'm just teasing," said Ray. After a moment he added, "you're my best friend too, okay?"

"Good," said Fraser fiercely. He sounded positively impolite about it, almost selfish, and it made Ray smile helplessly in the dark.

"Let's just be better at it next year," he said.

"It's a little early for New Years resolutions," Fraser pointed out.

"Camping rule number two: the new camping year starts at the end of May," declared Ray. "Any objections?"

"None."

"May it is. And we resolve that instead of apologizing we'll just be better at being friends."

"So be it," said Fraser. It was hard to shake on anything from a sleeping bag, but Ray felt Fraser's warm hand clasp his shoulder for a moment before it was gone.

"So be it," he repeated, and went to sleep.

 

His flight back was delayed two hours, though at least it was the Edmonton to Chicago leg, so it didn't mess up any connections. Well, just his connection with Kowalski, who was leaning against the far wall where customs spat him out, scowling. He didn't move to greet Ray, but he got that little crease in his cheek that mean he wanted to smile, no matter what the rest of his face was actually doing.

"Took you long enough," he said when Ray made his way over, swinging off the wall and into step.

"Tell me about it." Kowalski didn't offer to take any of his bags, so Ray knocked the big duffle purposefully into his knees until he took the hint. "Guess I’m not in the land of the polite and helpful anymore," he said.

"Nope," said Kowalski cheerfully. "Come on, car's this way."

They didn't talk on the way to the parking garage. Anyone else would have asked about his trip, but Kowalski didn't talk about Fraser- at least, not in daylight and not in public- so that was ruled out. Ray was busy settling back into himself. The calm he'd felt in Canada had dissipated as he'd gotten closer and closer to civilization, and as soon as he set foot on Chicago soil (well, Chicago concrete) he could feel the familiar, gritty tug of exhaustion. He was keyed up on top of it, though, jittery from sitting for so long, hyperaware of Kowalski's easy gait next to him and what he'd been thinking about on the plane. It was warm out, the height of spring; Ray was a little overdressed for the weather, but Kowalski was back in his habitual t-shirt, and maybe Ray should have been worrying about the realization he'd had in Canada but mostly he just wanted to touch him. 

They slung Ray's bags into the trunk and crept slowly out of the airport traffic. Once they were finally free Kowalski stepped on it, and after two weeks of driving with Fraser the speed made Ray's skin hum. He put a hand on the dash just to feel it better. He'd never admit it, but the truth was that once you got to the fourth 1971 Buick Riviera in the area quality parts started to get a little thin on the ground, and Kowalski took better care of the GTO than some parents took of their kids.

"House or apartment?" Kowaski asked.

"How about your place?"

"What? Why?"

"Because it's closer." Ray could hear the tension in his own voice, and apparently Kowalski could too because he glanced over and then did an actual double-take at Ray's expression.

"Really?" he said, a delighted smirk spreading across his face.

"You have other plans?"

"Hell no. Kowalski residence, coming right up."

Ray left his stuff in the car and dogged Kowalski's heels up to his apartment. Once the door closed behind them Kowalski turned and raised his eyebrows, hands open at his sides. The edge on his amusement was pleased rather than angry, but other than that he didn't look all that different from when he was inviting Ray to take a swing at him. He'd said back in October that he liked it rough. Ray was maybe two parts turned on to one part nervous, but it was okay, he could do this, he'd shoved Kowalski lots of times.

"Well?" said Kowalski, like he somehow knew Ray needed a little goading.

"Yeah, yeah," said Ray, and pushed him back into the wall.

He didn't put that much force behind it, but Kowalski wasn't braced at all and stumbled back, eyes widening in a way that made Ray want to cringe a little, even knowing that it was what he wanted. Well, there was that theory tested. He blinked past it and followed Kowalski, pressing up close. That was better, just touching him, feeling the heat coming off him through the t-shirt, his hands closing around Ray's hips. _Rough_ , he thought, and dragged his teeth over Kowalski's neck. That, at least, just felt like sex.

"Oh my god, Vecchio," said Kowalski breathlessly, and that was it, that was as long as Ray could go without kissing him.

The problem with kissing Kowalski was that once he started he never, ever wanted to stop. He lost track of what he was doing and just melted into him for a while, still pressed up against the living room wall and not really caring. Kowalski didn't seem to mind either. He was tugging at Ray's clothes with intent but not a lot of focus, chasing his mouth when he pulled back to breathe. Ray had a plan, though, and it involved a bed. Eventually he got a hand down between them and cupped Kowalski through his jeans, which made him tilt his head back against the wall and gasp open-mouthed long enough for Ray to extricate himself, though it took all his willpower with that picture in front of him. He backed a couple steps toward the bedroom.

"You coming?" 

Kowalski waggled his eyebrows outrageously. "With any luck I will be soon." 

Ray rolled his eyes and started undoing the shirt buttons that Kowalski hadn't already gotten to, then winced when he smelled himself and stopped. Right, he'd just gotten off twenty-four hours worth of airplanes.

"Give me one minute," he told Kowalski, changing tack and heading for the bathroom instead. "And get naked!"

Pretty much everything he was wearing would need to be washed and ironed anyway, so he just left it in a pile on the floor and got into the shower while it was still lukewarm. No matter how much flak Kowalski gave him for having no hair, it sure made cleaning up go faster. He soaped himself down and was done before the water got all the way hot. 

He didn't bother getting dressed again, just toweled off and kicked his clothes into the corner for later. He left his cross on, because he'd seen the way Kowalski's eyes caught on it and he wasn't stupid. Maybe he should have felt more conflicted about it. It was probably blasphemous, especially considering what he was about to go do, but it felt a hell of a lot cleaner than some of the things he'd done wearing Langoustini's. It had been an heirloom, recognizable, which meant that someone must have gone in and pulled that cross off Langoustini's corpse to give to Ray. He'd had to fight down a shudder every time he thought about it for the whole first month.

He shook off the memory- the whole point of this was to keep Langoustini out of it- and headed back to the bedroom. Kowalski was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, waiting, expression maybe equal parts arousal and awkwardness. Ray felt a rush of fondness for him.

"I wish you followed directions this well at work," he said.

"Yeah, don't get your hopes up," said Kowalski, but he was grinning, his tone all flirtation. He lay back easily, letting Ray sprawl on top and kiss him some more, remembering the way their bodies fit together. Kowalski wrapped a leg around him and kissed back, making little pleased noises into his mouth. It was all familiar, which somehow stood out after being away. He'd never really thought about just how long they'd been doing this.

"Did you miss me?" asked Kowalski when he pulled away to breathe. He was still doing that same utterly intentional flirtation, knowing smile and raised eyebrows and deliberate slow blink. Ray was never, ever going to admit that he was actually pulling it off.

"Only because I forgot how obnoxious you are," he said. He wondered if he could give Kowalski a hickey without him noticing. 

"Mmm," said Kowalski, which could have been agreement or just appreciation for Ray's mouth on his neck. He was shifting his hips a little, lazily, his cock brushing Ray's stomach. "So, you wanna do anything in particular?"

"Yes, actually," said Ray, and scooted down the bed enough to close his teeth lightly around one of Kowalski's nipples. Kowalski's whole body twitched up, shoulders pressing into the mattress.

"No argument here," he said, sounding a little strangled. Ray smiled to himself, switching to the other side. He wanted to linger there, draw it out, but there wasn't any need to wind Kowalski up. He was just putting off his real plan. Now that he'd gotten them here, Kowalski's body warm and immediate under him, the whole idea seemed riskier than it had on the plane. Still, if it didn't work it just wouldn't work, and that would be that. He'd done things much more nerve-wracking than this with much less fuss. 

He gave himself a mental count of five and then slid the rest of the way down so his chin was just about at Kowalski's hipbone. He'd meant to just do it, but he couldn't help glancing up at the last moment, gauging Kowalski's reaction. He was up on his elbows, watching Ray intently. He didn't bother with _are you sure_ or _you don't have to_ , just said, 

"Okay," kind of breathlessly, not bothering to hide his eagerness. It made Ray smile again, and made it easier for him to bend down and take Kowalski's cock in his mouth.

It was a little weird, but not as much as he'd been expecting. He'd imagined it enough, and the whole thing wasn't so complicated that his fantasy of giving a blowjob could really be that far off the mark of reality. He'd certainly been on the receiving end enough times to get a general idea. The taste was sort of odd, and Kowalski's cock felt more delicate in his mouth than in his hand, more like he had to be careful, but he could handle it.

Kowalski was holding himself perfectly still except for the occasional tremble of effort, breathing fast through his mouth; Ray hadn't exactly said this was his first attempt at blowing somebody, but it was probably pretty obvious. He patted Kowalski on the thigh in what he hoped was an interpretable gesture of thanks. 

"You're good," said Kowalski. "Just take it slow, you're fine."

Ray took him at his word, taking his time to test out how far down he could go- not very- whether changing the angle helped at all, how to manage suction and breathing at the same time. Kowalski murmured encouragement, reaching down with one hand to cup the back of Ray's head gently. His other hand was clenched in the sheets, like if he hung on hard enough it would be easier to keep still. 

It didn't take too long to get everything pretty much figured out. Once Ray had it he reached up for the hand on his head. Kowalski let him take it, maybe thinking that Ray was objecting to being controlled, but that wasn't it at all. He pulled back so just the tip of Kowalski's cock was in his mouth- he wasn't sure he was really up to multitasking, and he didn't want to choke doing this- grabbed both of Kowalski's wrists, and slammed them down on the bed with as much force as he could manage. 

Kowalski cried out and bucked under him, but Ray had been expecting something like that and managed to ride it out. When he glanced up Kowalski was flat on the bed, chest heaving.

"Vecchio-" he started, but lost whatever else he was going to say when Ray managed to fit his mouth back around his cock. He was a little clumsier without the use of his hands, but Kowalski didn't seem to mind.

Being delayed in the Edmonton airport had been like getting stuck in limbo not only between Fraser's wilderness and Chicago, but between the weird magnetic pull his mind was doing where the closer he got to the USA, the more his thoughts shifted from Fraser to Kowalski. Stuck there in the middle, he found himself thinking of how Fraser had loved Kowalski enough to move for him, to cling to the little things Kowalski left behind, but he still hadn't been able to give Kowalski what he wanted.

He'd spent the flight back remembering what Kowalski had said on his birthday: the admission, the challenge in it, the way he'd moved past it almost instantly. Somewhere up there, suspended between countries, he thought about the realization he'd spoken aloud in Fraser's car and decided that he had to at least try. The solution had presented itself almost immediately. He didn't want to hold Kowalski down because it felt too much like Langoustini, like just taking what he wanted without a thought for the other person. Armando Langoustini, though, would never, ever, offer to blow another guy. Ray hadn't done it either, but he could- there was another point of difference for the list- and maybe if he kept his mind on that it would feel different enough. 

It seemed to be working. It was sure as hell working for Kowalski; he was making little shifting thrusts up into Ray's mouth like he couldn't help it, pulling at his hands not enough to get free but so that Ray could feel the tension against his grip. He was still talking- it seemed like nothing would shut him up- but it was just Ray's name interspersed with swearing and random words that he couldn't seem to make into sentences. Ray had never seen him so incoherent. The act of holding Kowalski down didn't do anything in particular for him, but Kowalski's reaction was enough to have him squirming, trying to find some friction against the sheets. He seemed almost desperate.

That wasn't too surprising; Kowalski hadn't had anyone to do this for him for a long time. Not since Stella, in all likelihood. In fact, given what Ray knew about his life, Stella had probably been the one to help figure out that he liked it in the first place. He wondered how old they'd been. No later than high school, surely. You could hold someone down even if you were steering clear of actual sex, and in Ray's experience when you only had a couple of things you could do you did them every which way you could come up with. Thinking about it gave him a pang of something that wasn't quite jealousy but wasn't too far off, either. It made him wonder what he and Kowalski would have been like if they'd met younger, before there were so many other people entwined in their history.

He tightened his grip unconsciously at the thought. Kowalski let out a high-pitched noise and bucked up, making Ray pull off fast so he wouldn't choke.

"Hey, stay still," he said. His voice came out low and rough, even though he hadn't really been taking Kowalski deep enough to mess it up.

"Yeah, Vecchio, sorry, please," gasped Kowalski. He was just stringing words together, which made Ray say, 

"Fuck, Kowalski," right back to him, a little amazed.

"Come on, yeah," said Kowalski, hitching his hips restlessly. Right. Ray bent down and took him back in.

Kowalski had used up his ability to hold still, though. He was obviously trying, but after the third time he thrust up too hard Ray stopped to cough and realized that this wasn't going to work. Maybe if he'd taken the time to actually practice giving blowjobs once or twice before diving into this whole thing, but there was no going back now.

He let Kowalski's wrists go and held him down with one forearm across his hips instead, leaning as much of his weight into it as he could manage. It didn't seem to be quite on the same level as pinning his hands, but either Kowalski liked it just as much or he was past caring. It definitely worked better for Ray. Kowalski couldn't thrust with most of Ray's bodyweight keeping him down, and it left him one hand free to wrap around the base of Kowalski's cock, which made everything easier. When he switched positions he'd shifted over so he could rub against one of Kowalski's legs, too, and that felt so good that he didn't care how inelegant it was. 

"Vecchio, oh my god," mumbled Kowalski when he felt what Ray was doing. Ray glanced up at him, face heating even though it was a stupid thing to get embarrassed about in the middle of all this. Kowalski had gotten his head up and was staring at him, sex-glazed and disbelieving. He squirmed around, panting out something close to a whine when Ray pressed down harder across his hips, and stretched so that Ray could actually straddle his leg if he hunched a bit. Ray lost his concentration a little at that, moaning around Kowalski's cock, and Kowalski's head fell back to the pillow even as his stomach muscles strained against Ray's arm.

He was leaking in Ray's mouth now, an odd kind of salty taste, even though it was by no account a very good blowjob. Ray had the basics down, but there was definitely no finesse to it and he still couldn't get a steady rhythm around having to breathe. It didn't seem to matter. Kowalski's sounds were only halfway to words now, and he slid a hand around to the back of Ray's head again. He wasn't quite as gentle this time, but he wasn't trying to take control, either, just hanging on. 

He didn't manage much of a coherent warning, but he got his other hand to Ray's shoulder and ground out,

"Fuck, I can't, Vecchio, Vecchio _please_ ," and then went completely, utterly silent as he came, arching up so hard that his hips actually came off the mattress despite Ray's full weight on him. It was maybe the hottest thing Ray had ever seen in his life. He might have followed Kowalski right over the edge if he wasn't suddenly trying not to gag on a mouthful of come, which was pretty much as disgusting as he'd ever imagined.

As soon as Kowalski was done he lunged for the tissues on the bedside table and spat- ugh, gross- before turning back to the bed. Kowalski looked totally wrecked. Ray glanced at the tissue in his hand, then balled it up and threw it out.

"I bet Fraser swallows," he said, but he couldn't make it sound anything but smug. Fraser probably did swallow, and he was probably a lot better with his tongue than Ray was, but he'd never been able to bring himself to do what Ray had just done, and that was what mattered. Kowalski didn't seem to care much about the quality of the blowjob itself.

"I swallow," said Kowalski, opening his eyes and favoring Ray with the laziest, dirtiest grin he'd ever seen. It practically screamed _totally fucked out and it was awesome_. 

"You know, I remember something about that," Ray told him. Part of him wanted to grin back, but a larger part wanted to climb on top of Kowalski and just rub off on him if that was what it took. He'd been half-hard since the damn airplane, which felt like a lifetime ago.

"You want a refresher?" asked Kowalski.

"I won't last more than a minute," Ray warned him.

"Much more than that and I'll be asleep, anyway," said Kowalski with the easy good humor of someone who'd already gotten his. "Come on, sit up against the headboard."

 

He was as good as his word about the swallowing, and also about being out like a light almost before Ray had gotten his breath back. That was fast, even for Kowalski. Ray decided to take it as a compliment. He flipped the sheet up over them both and just lay there for a while, though he didn't sleep. That was fine; if he napped now he'd have no hope at all of falling asleep when it was actually nighttime. Instead he watched the late afternoon sunlight slant and redden and disappear to the familiar sounds of Kowalski sleeping beside him and Chicago settling into night outside the open window.

Kowalski woke up after an hour or two, announcing himself with a long, straining stretch and a sigh.

"What time is it?" he asked, wiping sleep out of his eyes.

"About eight-thirty. I can't tell you how much I missed it getting dark at a reasonable time. Don't know how you could stand it up there."

"I couldn't," said Kowalski quietly. He rubbed his eyes again.

"Fraser knows about us," Ray admitted. It had been weighing on him since the airport, knowing that he had to tell Kowalski and a little afraid of his reaction.

"You tell him?"

"No, but we went into town and I called you instead of my mother. He figured it out."

"Right." There was a long pause. Kowalski shifted over onto his back, hands behind his head.

"How is he?" he asked eventually.

Ray thought about it. It was hard to give a simple answer, to weigh how Fraser clearly loved his home against the fact that he just as clearly hadn't planned to live there alone, the way he smiled against the shadows of Kowalski that were still everywhere, even three quarters of a year later.

"He's okay," he said, because it was true, and then added, "I think you broke the man's heart," because that was true too.

"Yeah, well, he broke yours," said Kowalski, "so if you break mine we'll all be square."

"Even steven," agreed Ray. Kowalski turned to give him a skeptical look.

"Who the hell says even steven?" he asked, and then demanded to know why Ray was laughing.

"It's nothing, never mind. Nobody says it." He leaned over to kiss Kowalski again, more or less just because he could. "So, are you gonna drive me home or what?"

 

It occurred to him later that _if you break mine_ was maybe as close as Kowalski was ever going to get to _I love you_. That was all right. Ray could translate just fine.

 

On Monday night he unpacked, and Tuesday he went home for dinner. Frannie was due in a little over six weeks and had somehow gone from pregnant to _really pregnant_ while he'd been gone, not that he said anything about it. He'd learned at least a little bit from Maria's three pregnancies. He told Frannie she looked wonderful and answered all her questions about Fraser until Ma scolded her to let him eat already. That sparked an argument about speaking for other people and whether Ma would ever accept that they were all adults, but Ray mostly kept his head down and ate through that one. 

Ma and Frannie were still on thin ice, but these days Frannie cried at the drop of a hat, and that always derailed their fights into complaining sessions about hormones and endless recounting of all Ma and Maria's experiences and advice. Ray privately suspected that Frannie was faking it a little- she'd been able to cry on cue since they were kids, a skill that she mostly used to get him in trouble- but if so he couldn't really blame her.

On Wednesday he went over to Kowalski's. He wasn't exactly sure whose turn it was; Kowalski had been at his place last before his trip, but maybe their detour on the back from the airport counted as his turn. In the end he decided he didn't care. Kowalski could kick him out if he was busy.

The GTO was outside, which was a good sign, so Ray parked around the corner and headed upstairs. He could hear yelling through the apartment door. He thought about turning around, but a minute's listening revealed that Kowalski was either fighting with himself- odd, but Ray wouldn't put it past him- or on the phone, and he didn't mind interrupting either of those. He'd certainly made Kowalski wait while he was on the phone enough times.

He knocked. The yelling became clearer as Kowalski approached, coalescing into actual words.

"Don't- no, that's exactly what I said!" he heard, and then Kowalski yanked the door open and gave him a quick, narrow-eyed look.

"Here, talk to Vecchio," he said, thrust the phone at Ray, and stormed out of the room, muttering. Ray blinked. After a moment he stepped inside, shut the door, and raised the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" he ventured. He was sort of expecting Stella, praying it wasn't Welsh, but it was Fraser. Of course it was Fraser.

"Hello, Ray," he said, sounding tired. "How are you?"

"All right. What's going on?"

"Well, Ray Kowalski called me, I believe to make amends initially, but it seems we have some, ah, unfinished business."

"You could say that again. Any idea what I'm doing with the phone? Not that I don't like talking to you-"

"But maybe another time would be better?" suggested Fraser.

"Yeah, exactly."

"I suspect Ray is taking a moment to gather his thoughts and plan what he wants to say to me."

"O-kay," said Ray. He'd never known Kowalski to be anything like that level-headed in the middle of a fight, but then again he and Kowalski probably would have come to blows by this point. Debating Fraser over a phone line would take a whole different set of skills. He'd never tried it.

Kowalski reappeared and made impatient grabbing motions at the phone, so Ray told Fraser to hang on and handed it back over. Kowalski took it into his room and closed the door. After a brief struggle with his conscience Ray turned on the TV so he couldn't eavesdrop.

The argument lasted another twenty minutes or so, though at some point Ray became aware that at least he couldn't hear yelling anymore. Eventually the door opened and Kowalski wandered back in, looking a little sheepish.

"Sorry about that," he said.

"It's fine. Everything all right?"

Kowalski slumped on the couch next to him and rubbed a hand over his face.

"No. I think it will be, though."

"What happened?"

"I called him. I kept thinking about you said, you know, when you came back. We, uh, didn't leave things so good."

"You didn't? No kidding." That was maybe a little mean, but honestly, did he think Ray hadn't noticed? Kowalski rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, understatement, I know. I didn't want to never talk to him again, though. Figured it was time."

"So are you two gonna give it another go?"

"What, talking?"

"No, you know. The whole thing." Ray waved his hand in a way that hopefully conveyed _whatever you were doing up there_. Kowalski kicked him lightly.

"Don't be an idiot, Vecchio," he said. "What are we watching?"

 

Ray really, honestly thought they were good after that. Kowalski and Fraser fought for another week and Ray stayed as far out of it as he could, figuring that even the suspicion of taking sides on this one would lead to disaster, and then they finally got it out of their systems and were just talking again, the way Ray and Fraser were talking. There were still things none of the three of them talked _about_ , but at least the mention of Fraser's name no longer halted any and all conversation.

Summer slammed into Chicago with no warning at all. Frannie was eight months pregnant and swearing she'd never do it again, Welsh got crankier with every degree the temperature rose, and half the station threatened a strike unless they got air conditioning, which always happened- the threat, not the strike or the air conditioning. Ray got himself a window unit. Between that and the opportunity to eat real food Kowalski gave up on the unspoken turn system and just showed up at Ray's apartment most nights of the week. They stumbled- literally- on the solution to a burglary case Einhorn had been working for a week and stole it out from under him, very graciously and in the spirit of collaboration, at least until they were out the station door and could gloat as much as they wanted. Ray figured everything had finally settled.

He was not expecting Kowalski to flip out at a random witness interview in July.

The witness, unfortunately, was six-year-old Stephanie Harris, who'd been hidden behind the fish tank she was investigating when someone- they really would have liked to know who- held up Bridgeview Bank. The adults in the building had been threatened with messy death if they so much as glanced up from the floor, so Stephanie was the only one who'd seen the robber's face. It would have been nice if they'd had anything else to go on. The word of a six-year-old wasn't going to stand up in court even if she could ID the guy, but they were stuck as stuck could be, so they'd brought over a folder of mugshots just on the off-chance she screamed and pointed at one of them or something.

It shouldn't have been a difficult visit. The Harrises were about as cooperative as you could hope for parents to be, and Stephanie seemed to have bounced back from the whole experience pretty well. She was a cute kid, small, with little plastic beads at the end of her braids that clicked whenever she moved. She must have been standing still as a statue for the robber to have missed her.

Kowalski had bonded with her during the initial investigation, saying they were both part of the Bank Robbery Heroes club, so Ray was surprised when he angled for the parents this time around. That left Ray to go through the photos with Stephanie, which he managed, though not entirely gracefully. She didn't recognize anyone, of course. She also knew exactly which Ray was her friend, and insisted on showing Kowalski her own fish tank before they could be allowed to leave. He looked like he found the demand charming against his will. Frannie's due date was close enough that Ray was mostly looking at kids and thinking about how long they took to get from pooping-and-crying to actually interesting, but he didn't mind taking a little break in a calm, air conditioned house before they went back to work. He was glad the whole robbery thing hadn't put her off fish forever, too.

As soon as the door closed behind them the smile dropped off Kowalski's face and he turned and kicked the front step.

"I'm going home," he said. "Tell Welsh I'm sick or something."

"What?"

"Sick, okay? Tell him I'm sick. You want me to stick a finger down my throat right here?"

"No," said Ray, taken aback. Kowalski was angry, really viciously angry. It wasn't that he hadn't seen that before, but he usually had some idea what had caused it, some sort of ability to see it coming. 

"All right." Kowalski stomped off down the street. Ray stood there stunned, watching him flag down a cab and get in. He got the feeling that he was lucky they were in the Riv today, or he might have gotten stranded. Well, maybe Kowalski would have dropped him off, but he wouldn't bet on it.

He went back to the station and made Kowalski's excuses. Welsh didn't blink an eye. 

"Probably gave himself food poisoning," he said. "I'm surprised he hasn't done it before now." Ray started to bristle and then remembered that as far as Welsh knew, Kowalski was still eating cold pizza six nights a week with a break for shitty Chinese. It really was a wonder he hadn't poisoned himself before Ray started feeding him.

"You don't need backup for anything, do you?" asked Welsh.

"Doubt it. I'll corral Einhorn if something comes up."

"All right. Tell Kowalski to take tomorrow if he needs it, I don't think he's used a sick day all year."

Ray wandered back to his desk, trying not to worry about how Welsh just assumed he'd talk to Kowalski. They were back to square one with the bank robbery case. He flipped the depressingly thin file open and stared at it, trying to think of some new angle, but he kept getting distracted by the memory of Kowalski's little hissy fit outside the Harrises' house. The more he thought about it the more pissed off he got. He should have made Kowalski stay, at least demanded an explanation, but he'd been so taken aback that he hadn't even processed what he was agreeing to. Actually, he hadn't ever really agreed at all, Kowalski had just left him there with no choice in the matter.

By the time the clock finally hit five Ray had worked himself up from angry to furious. He made Kowalski's apartment by five twenty and knocked harder than was strictly necessary, trying not to think about the definite possibility that Kowalski was playing hooky in order to go somewhere, not just sit at home and wait for Ray to come yell at him.

"It's open," called Kowalski. Something unknotted in Ray's stomach, but only until he let himself in and found Kowalski sitting on his couch with a half-empty bottle of whiskey for company.

"What the hell?" demanded Ray. Kowalski looked up at him and sighed.

"Really?" he said, not like he was upset at being barged in on, just sounding tired, sick of Ray's shit. That rankled.

"Really, what? Really, I'm angry? Yeah, I'm angry. What makes you think you can just fuck off work whenever you want? There's a reason your job exists, people are counting on you. And you have no right to make me cover for you. What if Welsh finds out you just felt like taking the day off to have a drink, then what happens to me? You didn't even ask, you just assumed I'd be happy to put myself on the line for you!"

"Who are you even talking to?" asked Kowalski, and hey, now he was upset. He shoved himself off the couch and prowled over into Ray's space. "Jesus, Vecchio, I thought we were past this."

"Past what?" Kowalski was steady on his feet, Ray noted automatically, but he was talking with his hands a lot more than usual. It was funny, or sad, or something, that when he got drunk he got more like Ray.

"Answer me this," said Kowalski. "If you'd come here and it turned out that I'd killed some people, stolen some diamonds, and run off with a sexy psychopath, what would you do?"

Ray gaped at him. Kowalski had access to all the files, sure, but that wasn't in them.

"How do you-"

"Just answer the question! Come on, Vecchio, think about it. Would you cover for me?" Kowalski looked like he'd shake an answer out of Ray if he had to, so he thought about it, made himself picture the whole thing.

"I'd chase you down and punch you in the face," he said finally. Kowalski blew out a breath and stepped back.

"See? You're fine. Just get it through your head that I’m not Fraser already. It's not the end of the world if I fake sick for half a day, you wouldn't let me take advantage of you."

"Oh," said Ray. He sat down for a minute to think it through. It still felt like a luxury to do that, to be thrown by something and take the time to sort it out instead of having to fake the right reaction on a dime.

Kowalski was right, of course. There was no reason for him to have gotten that angry, not over half a day when they weren't even getting anything done. Nothing would have happened, even if Welsh had somehow found out. People covered for each other like that all the time. Granted, Kowalski hadn't exactly asked nicely, but Ray hadn't really been thinking of that. It seemed he hadn't really been thinking about Kowalski at all.

It was also true that if it had turned out to be something like he'd feared he would have stood up to Kowalski, would have fought tooth and nail to stop it. Maybe that had something to do with the difference between Fraser and Kowalski, or maybe it was just that sometime in the last year he'd somehow pulled a piece of himself back from Langoustini and his family and Fraser and the ghost of his Pop and everyone else who'd ever laid claim to it, and he wasn't about to lay it right back down at somebody else's feet. 

Kowalski was still standing, watching him warily. Ray scrubbed a hand over his face.

"How'd you do that?" he asked finally. Kowalski sighed and dropped down on the other end of the couch.

"I told you, I know everything about you."

"I've done plenty of things you don't know about."

"You never listen, you know that?" said Kowalski, though he was back to just sounding tired rather than angry. "It was my job to know about you. Knowing about Langoustini was your job."

Ray wasn't sure that made sense, but he was done fighting. Now that he wasn't occupied with being furious he was starting to feel bad for barging in, and also a little worried. Like Welsh had said, Kowalski hadn't taken a single sick day since coming back from Canada. Something was obviously wrong.

"So, uh, what's all this about?" he asked, nodding toward the bottle on the table.

"Oh, that?" Kowalski gave a little humorless laugh. "It's my divorce-iversary. Thought I'd celebrate."

"Shit, Kowalski, I'm sorry." 

He shrugged. "It's no big deal, I just couldn't take the kid. Not today."

Ray thought back to the conversation he'd had with Stella, back in the restaurant in March.

"You think about calling her?" he asked. "I bet she wouldn't mind hearing from you." He wasn't completely sure of that, but Stella could handle herself if he was wrong. It occurred to him that he'd changed allegiances since the last time he'd thought about it, that out of the tangle of all the history the four of them shared he was on Kowalski's side now. That left Stella and Fraser together, which somehow wasn't as odd a thought as it should have been.

"Nah, it'd just get maudlin," said Kowalski. "Maybe some other time." He picked up the bottle again but didn't drink from it, just turned it around in his hands and picked at the label a little. Ray watched him in silence for a minute. He wanted to do something, put a hand on Kowalski's knee or maybe his bent neck, rub a little right at the base of his hairline, but he wasn't sure Kowalski would welcome it. In some ways Stella was harder to dance around than Fraser. Their marriage seemed like such a different life that he wasn't even jealous, particularly, just out of his depth. 

"Would you still be married to her, if you could?" he asked eventually. Kowalski glanced up at him and then back down.

"I dunno, maybe." He shrugged. "Don't worry, I'm not leaving."

Ray's Kowalski translator must have been working for once, because he didn't have any trouble hearing _leaving_ and understanding it as _leaving you_.

"I'm not worried," he said, realizing as the words came out of his mouth that it was true.

"I dunno," said Kowalski again. "I don't think there was any way it was gonna work out. Maybe if I had a magic wand and I could make there be some world where our marriage stayed good and we had kids and didn't hate each other- yeah, I might do that." He glanced up again, gauging Ray's reaction. "But it wouldn't have happened like that. Not in this world, anyway. It's not like there's something where if I went back and did it differently we would have ended up happy. There isn't anything I'd want to do different, either, except maybe not be such a jerk after the divorce, and I’m pretty sure that wouldn't stop me ending up here. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, perfect sense," said Ray. If there was a magic world where Vegas had never come across his plate he'd take it in a heartbeat, but if all he had was this world to do over again he'd still make all the same choices that had led him there. Well, maybe he'd go a little easier on Guy Rankin. He'd like to think he would.

"Doesn't matter, anyway," said Kowalski. "Can't go back." He took a sip of the whiskey.

"Well," said Ray, suddenly awkward. "I'm sorry I barged in on you like that."

"No big deal." Kowalski waved a hand.

"Still. Sorry." He got up. "I'll see you tomorrow. Or Welsh says to take the day if you need it. You know, for your food poisoning."

Kowalski snorted. "I'll be there."

"All right."

He was almost to the door when Kowalski stopped him.

"Vecchio?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"You, uh. You wanna stay?"

Ray looked over at him. He was hunched on the couch, elbows on his knees, talking mostly to the table in front of him. Ray still wanted to touch him.

"You gonna stop drinking?" he asked. Kowalski twisted the cap onto the bottle and held it out to him wordlessly. His heart couldn't have been in it, anyway; if he'd really wanted to get smashed he'd had plenty of time to do it before Ray showed up. 

"Yeah, all right," said Ray. He took the bottle, and gave in to the urge to rub his other hand gently over Kowalski's shoulder as he went by.

He didn't actually know where Kowalski kept his alcohol, so he just stuck it on the back of the kitchen counter and made himself busy figuring out dinner. Kowalski could come in if he wanted company. There wasn't a lot to work with- they didn't eat here much these days, and when they did it was usually takeout- but he thought he could manage some kind of improvised stew.

Kowalski didn't come in. Instead he put music on in the living room and Ray could hear him moving around, shadow dancing, humming a little bit. He left him to it.

Kowalski was quiet over dinner, but that was fine, Ray was perfectly capable of stretching an update on the Vecchio family gossip into an entire conversation. Kowalski nodded and laughed in the right places like he was really listening, just not saying much. He insisted on doing the dishes.

When they were done Ray took him to bed and fucked him facedown, slow and sweet like Kowalski had done for him the first time, because it was theirs, not Fraser's or Stella's. That seemed important. It was a little sad not to see his face, but Kowalski liked Ray's weight on him, which was easy like this, and he kept up a steady stream of murmuring like always. The apartment was muggy even though they'd opened all the windows. Ray tasted salt on Kowalski's shoulders, the back of his neck, everywhere he put his mouth. He didn't mind. That was the price you paid for living in Chicago in July.

Kowalski barely stayed awake long enough for Ray to clean them up, which was more or less the whole idea. Ray didn't bother trying to sleep. It was early yet, barely dark out, and for once he wasn't all that tired. He didn't mind staying, though. Kowalski's sleeping form was comfortingly familiar, and even though it was hot it was nice to hear the city instead of the white-noise hum of the air conditioner. He'd gotten too accustomed to Vegas and then Florida, where there wasn't even a question of not using one. He even let his mind wander a bit, hoping that maybe it would stay on Chicago and the complications of the Kowalski divorce and the tangle of relationships he found himself in. It didn't, of course, but that was all right. It just meant tonight wasn't different from any other night.

He was going over ways he could have saved Joseph Colangelo without blowing his cover for maybe the millionth time when Kowalski stirred and mumbled and groped his way out of bed and off to the bathroom. It wasn't that late, maybe eleven, but Ray would have thought he'd be down for the count anyway. He was surprised when Kowalski came back and lay down with his fingers laced behind his head, staring up at the ceiling and clearly thinking about something instead of just going back to sleep. Ray rolled over to watch him, even though one of the rules of the stakeout-tent-bed-confessional atmosphere was not looking at each other. Kowalski was the one building up to say something. If he didn't want to look he didn't have to.

"It's not even that I miss Stella," said Kowalski eventually, keeping his voice nighttime-low even though it was just the two of them and they were both obviously awake. "I mean, I do, but it's more that I had this plan, you know? Somewhere I thought my life was going. Somewhere good. And now look at me- almost forty, divorced, no house, no family, nothing. I'm not…I don't do so well on my own. I never even wanted to."

Ray couldn't help but smile at him fondly. 

"Anyone ever tell you you were subtle, Kowalski? 'Cause they were lying."

"What?"

Ray stuck his leg over the middle line so he could nudge Kowalski's shins. "Just move in already."

That made Kowalski turn and look at him, not just his head but his whole body in one violent twist so they were facing each other.

"Really?"

"No, April Fool's. Of course really."

"Everyone will know."

"As long as we leave some plausible deniability for Ma, I really don't care. Just say yes."

"Yes," said Kowalski, so quickly it was almost an interruption. Ray grinned at him.

"Now come kiss me."

Kowalski did, leaning across the bed and then making a noise of frustration and rolling Ray onto his back instead, leaning over him with an elbow on either side of his head. Ray cupped his shoulder in one hand and kissed him back. Neither of them had bothered to put pajamas on in the heat, which he'd somehow almost forgotten about until Kowalski was pressed up against him. He pulled back after a long minute.

"Now say, 'the clothes I wore while undercover were an insult to the Vecchio name.'"

"You're pushing your luck."

"Oh, well. You were listening so well for a minute, it was worth a try."

"Jerk," said Kowalski, but even in the dark Ray could tell he was smiling.

 

They did, eventually, get another mafia case. Kowalski stopped and looked at him when they figured it out, but Ray just took a deep breath and nodded him on and they went through with it, made the arrests like any other day and somehow managed not to get shot in the process. Afterward Ray went to get in the car, trying not to sag too obviously with relief, but Kowalski caught him by the elbow and pulled him around the corner of the building they'd busted.

"What?" he asked. "Let's go do the paperwork and get done with this."

"You wanna maybe wait until you stop shaking to go back to the station?" asked Kowalski. Ray looked down at his hands. They were trembling, sure enough; now that he saw it he could feel the echoes through his whole body.

"Shit," he said, staring. When he focused on trying to make the shakes stop they just got worse.

"Hey, whatever," said Kowalski. He leaned into the brick wall Ray was using to support himself, bracing both hands on it so he was bracketing Ray with his body. "Everybody knows you're nuts anyway. They probably wouldn't blink an eye."

"Yeah, thanks a lot," said Ray. There was no one in sight- presumably everyone was busy herding the prisoners into patrol cars around the corner- so he let himself lean in and rest his forehead against Kowalski's collarbone.

"Just telling the truth," said Kowalski, but he lowered his head a little so his nose brushed Ray's temple. "I'm pretty sure there's a pot going on when you'll crack and go Vegas on Carlson's ass, but they won't let me in on it. Supposedly I'm too much in the know."

He kept talking but Ray wasn't paying much attention. He could feel Kowalski's heartbeat like this, smell sweat and gunpowder and hair gel because you could put Kowalski through a dumpster and he'd still smell like hair gel, it was practically a fact of nature.

"All right?" asked Kowalski eventually. Ray opened his eyes and looked down and hey, no more shakes. 

"Yeah, in a sec," he said. 

"'Kay," said Kowalski easily, shifting a little and settling. 

Ray closed his eyes again and took a minute, just a minute, to stand there and breathe before they went back to work.


End file.
